2008 Lamborghini Gallardo Spyder on 2040-cars

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Lamborghini builds 2,000th Aventador, production rate continues to climb

Last July, Lamborghini celebrated the assembly of its 1,000th Aventador. That was an impressive milestone for the $400,000-plus supercar, as its Murciélago predecessor took took nearly three years to accomplish the same feat. But the automaker's biggest and baddest bull has broken another milestone, as the Aventador celebrated its 2,000th vehicle produced last week. The Nero Nemesis (matte black) car rolled off the assembly line on June 6, destined to the garage of Thaddeus Arroyo, who lives in the States.
Originally launched as a closed-roof coupe at the Geneva Motor Show in 2011, the Italians introduced the open-roof LP 700-4 Roadster last fall at the Los Angeles Auto Show before allowing us to drive it in February of this year. Assembled in Sant'Agata Bolognese, Lamborghini's Aventador is currently running at a production rate of nearly five units per day.
Lamborghini has understandably been very pleased with its flagship, and customer demand shows no signs of faltering. According to the automaker, the waiting list for new car is longer than a year. Be sure to check out the press release below.

Lamborghini Huracan LP 610-4 Spyder opens up in Frankfurt

The Lamborghini Huracan is still a fairly fresh member to the supercar scene, but at the Frankfurt Motor Show, Lamborghini is giving its wealthy clientele an open-air variant of the V10 with the newly unveiled LP 610-4 Spyder. The introduction finally gives the brand a natural successor to the discontinued Gallardo Spyder. Mechanically, buyers are still getting a Huracan with its 5.2-liter V10 pumping out 602 horsepower (the 610 in the name is in metric ponies) and 413 pound-feet. A seven-speed dual-clutch gearbox routes power to all four wheels. Performance is quite brisk, with the sprint to 62 miles per hour coming in 3.4 seconds and to a top speed of 201 miles per hour. One thing the hardtop obviously can't match is the power-retracting roof that can open up in just 17 seconds at speeds up to 31 mph. Lambo's designers didn't just take a saw to the top and go sip an espresso, either. The roofline is thoroughly resculpted behind the seats both for improved aesthetics and to direct airflow around the occupants. When the roof is down, it's easier to spot the new nacelles that run down the rear of the supercar. Ducts in those bits help reduce turbulence, and they look great too. Another cool touch is that the rear glass is power operated and can be opened to let the V10's roar into the cabin. The first Huracan LP 610-4 Spyders arrive in spring 2016. Lamborghini is setting prices in Europe at 186,450 euros before taxes ($210,111 at current rates). The actual US figure could be somewhat different, though. Related Video:

Audi CEO says brand's EVs are almost as profitable as its other cars

After, oh, a hundred years or so of building vehicles primarily powered by internal combustion engines, automakers around the world have been and still are pumping billions of dollars into the development of electric vehicle technology. Everything from platforms and batteries to motors and the software to control it all requires untold hours of development, and that takes time and money. Fortunately, it's not going to take long for that massive investment to start paying off, at least according to Audi CEO Markus Duesmann, who told Reuters in an interview that "The point where we earn as much money with electric cars as with combustion engine cars is now, or ... next year, 2023. They are very even now, the prices." As a brand, Audi contributed more than a quarter of overall profit for the massive Volkswagen Group, which has such powerhouse brands as Volkswagen and Porsche among others. Under the Audi umbrella are Lamborghini, Bentley and Ducati, and it seems those high-end branches aren't going anywhere, at least for now. "These brands ... are very valuable very profitable brands, where we can even expand the synergy level in the future," Duesmann said in the interview. "There are no plans whatsoever to get rid of them." Despite the overall profitability of the brand, the ongoing global chip crisis is causing headaches. "We had a very strong first half in 2021. We do expect a much weaker second half," said Duesmann, who added, "We really have trouble." In fact, so serious is the trouble that the brand is forced into "a day-to-day troubleshooting process" to limit the chip-shortage damage. The good news for the automaker is that Audi has been able to boost its profit margin from 8% prior to the pandemic in 2019 to 10.7% in the first half of 2021. The bad news is that various chip shortages aren't expected to get a whole lot better over the rest of the year. Related video: