Earlier this month, Automobili Lamborghini Spa (
www.lamborghini.com) unveiled its Terzo Millennio (third millennium) concept car at the EmTech conference in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
The car is the product of the first 12 months of a three-year partnership between the car manufacturer and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. However, one of its key components does not yet exist.
According to a report by Blomberg, Lamborghini plans to develop super-capacitors that can provide the fast and intense energy needed to power a super-car — and could allow for all-electric models.
The lithium-ion batteries in today’s electric cars release energy more slowly and run down over repeated charges because they depend on chemical reactions; super-capacitors store energy physically and do not generate the heat of lithium-ion batteriess — but they do not yet offer as much power.
The technology is currently used in hybrid vehicles for such limited functions as getting stopped engines going again.
Lamborghini says it intends to make the super-capacitors out of carbon-fibre panels that can be used to form the body of the car, which means the Terzo Millennio would draw energy from its own body. Another feature would be in-wheel electric motors that eliminate the need for a “single large engine”.
Stefano Domenicali, Lamborghini’s chairman and CEO, said: “Collaborating with MIT is an exceptional opportunity for our R&D department to do what Lamborghini has always been very good at — rewriting the rules on super-cars.”
Currently, there is neither price guidance nor a timeline on the Terzo Millennio, and a production model will not be available for years, if ever.