Lamborghini partners with MIT for electric super sports car

Lamborghini and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have taken the first steps to developing a future Lamborghini electric super sports car

Photo courtesy of Lamborghini.

The new vehicle concept “Lamborghini of the Terzo Millennio”, focuses on five different areas of automobile design: energy storage systems, innovative materials, propulsion system, visionary design, and emotion.

When it comes to developing energy storage systems, Lamborghini partnered with the “Dinca Research Lab” at MIT, led by Prof. Mircea Dinca, Department of Chemistry. The automaker also joined forces with the “Mechanosynthesis Group”, led by Prof. Anastasios John Hart, Department of Mechanical Engineering at MIT, to explore innovative material options.

The automaker’s vision is one that moves away from conventional batteries, instead exploring the use of supercapacitors to equip the Terzo Millennio.

Lamborghini says the next logical step is the development of a storage system able to deliver high peak power and regenerate kinetic energy with very limited influence from aging and cycling during the vehicle’s life, and with the ability to symmetrically release and harvest electric power. The collaboration with Prof. Mircea Dinca aims to do just that.

“The new Lamborghini collaboration allows us to be ambitious and think outside the box in designing new materials that answer energy storage challenges for the demands of an electric sport vehicle,” explains Prof. Dinca.

To support this revolution in energy storage systems, the collaboration is exploring the ability to develop features and functions that use lightweight materials.

Prof. John Hart will investigate the new manufacturing routes for carbon fiber materials for the bodyshell, which will also act as an accumulator for energy storage and enable the complete body of the car to be used as a storage system.

A key target of the project is to provide the Terzo Millennio with the ability to conduct its own health monitoring to detect cracks and damages in its substructure derived from accidents, where a self-repairing process starts via micro-channels filled with healing chemistries.

When it comes to the Propulsion System. each wheel incorporates an integrated electric engine, enabling four-wheel drive and leveraging the opportunities provided by electric motors: high torque, reversibility, and the possibility of moving energy by wire. One of the advantages of moving the electric motors into the wheels is the freedom for designers and aerodynamicists.

Photo courtesy of Lamborghini.

Lamborghini hopes the responsiveness of the electric motors, the four-wheel torque control and the dynamic body control system will enhance the driver’s experience. The aerodynamics and innovative lightweight approach will result in a new dimension of longitudinal as well as lateral dynamics, in this combination until today unknown from electrified cars.

The  Terzo Millenio comes with a virtual cockpit. In the Piloted Driving simulation, the driver is taken around a track by a virtual expert before the driver takes over to feel like a ‘pilot’ himself, experiencing the real car and circuit while following the virtual ghost car.

www.lamborghini.com