Lamborghini has revealed the Terzo Millennio, a concept supercar that ditches V12 engines in favour of supercapacitator-powered electric motors.
The concept car wears its Lambo DNA on its sleeve, with a sharp and swooping angular design that looks like the love child of a Le Mans Prototype car and a stealth bomber that’s been sent back in time; Terzo Millennio does translate into “the third millennium” after all.
But under its striking hood, the Terzo Millennio doesn’t sport a roaring V10 or V12 engine that have been the signature dishes of Lamborghini cars since their inception. Rather it uses all-electric, all-wheel drive instead.
Built in collaboration with Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), the Terzo Millennio is being used to explore the potential for supercapacitators to replace battery power for electric vehicles, as the former has been found to store more power and degrade significantly less after being recharged than Lithium-ion batteries.
At the same time, Lamborghini is looking to find a way to store electrical energy in the carbon composite chassis of the car through the use of nanotechnology like carbon nanotubes, aiming to improve upon the battery capacity while keeping the car lightweight.
It’s also looking to find ways for the chassis to monitor the degradation of the carbon composite and find a way for it to self-heal.
In short, the Terzo Millennio is less a car and more an science and engineering project. So it will likely never make it onto public roads in its current form.
However, working with MIT and embracing electrical power shows Lamborghini is now a company not afraid to move beyond its well-established routes of putting large normally aspirated engines into aggressive looking cars. As such, we can expect to see all manner of interesting cars come out of Volkswagen Group-owned Lamborghini in the near-future.
Related: Jaguar E-Pace
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Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
