Lamborghini Urus SE review: Lambo to the slaughter
On real roads the Lamborghini Urus SE is so brutally fast, it makes you forget it’s also a plug-in hybrid
HAVING at last driven Lamborghini’s sport utility vehicle (SUV) for the first time, I can finally see the point in one, especially in Urus SE plug-in hybrid form. That makes me one of the last people on the planet to see the appeal, since the Urus is Lambo’s most popular car by far, and has been since birth. Shows you how much I know.
Mind you, this is the car company that gave us the Countach, a car that looked so much like a sculpture of pure speed that it single-handedly propped up the bedroom poster industry during my childhood. So you can understand my befuddlement about Lamborghini’s success with an SUV.
Of course, the Urus SE isn’t your ordinary family bus. Being the world’s fastest SUV, it comes with bragging rights. And though it has five seats and rides high enough to look like a monster truck beside Lamborghini’s earlier cars, the Urus somehow manages to feel like a sports car to drive. The acceleration is brutal. The cornering grip is ferocious. The brakes feel like they could halt a battleship. And on real roads – the sort with bumps, potholes, narrow lanes, blind corners and crests – I’m willing to bet it would slaughter any other Lambo, simply because it fills you with confidence. For one thing, you can see properly out of it, and for another, it doesn’t feel like hitting a nasty bump at the wrong speed will launch you into space.
Its raw pace on the track is a different matter, of course. The Revuelto or Temerario would fustigate it there. But we live in Singapore rather than Sepang, and here in the real world, this is the Lamborghini you can actually use, if not quite to its full 800 horsepower potential, then closer to it than in any of the others.
More than its ability to conjure up fearsome pace is its way of stirring your desire to drive it like you have diplomatic immunity. There’s excitement and drama when you throw it through a few corners, even though you more or less have to back off almost immediately if you don’t want to end up in the news.
I drove it nearly all the time in the hot-blooded Corsa mode, which keeps its snarling V8 engine constantly switched on, ready to dish out chaos. In fact, I basically forgot that as a plug-in hybrid, the Urus SE is part electric car. It can apparently cover 60 kilometres as a near silent, zero emissions machine, powered solely by its 25.9 kilowatt-hour battery. That’s a school run, a trip to the office and maybe back home again, all without needing a drop of fuel.
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But let’s not be naive. Saying you bought a Lambo for sustainability is like claiming you wear a Richard Mille to keep time. The “E” that flashes up on the driver display when you put the car into electric mode even has horns.
What you’re more likely to concern yourself with is whether the Urus reveals too much of its Audi DNA. The steering wheel, buttons and even the standalone air-con screen will be familiar to anyone who’s driven a car from Lambo’s parent company. But in practical terms, the Audi connection is no bad thing, since it ensures that everything works logically and feels solid, which is what you want in a family car, along with space in the back.
But on a broader scale, the Urus SE is more compliance car than family SUV. When pure combustion cars are eventually banned, this one lets Lamborghini stay in business.
In the meantime, business is booming. Lamborghini’s deliveries hit 5,681 cars in the first six months of 2025 (more than 1,200 of them in the Asia-Pacific region). It posted half-year revenues of 1.62 billion euros (S$2.42 billion), with 431 million euros in operating profit and a return on sales of 26.6 per cent. Margins like that make other car company CEOs weep with envy.
Without the Urus, the company would be half the size it is today, so the super fast SUV is above all a solid business proposition. It may not be the car of my childhood dreams, but it’s the one model that helps keep the Lambo dream alive.
Lamborghini Urus SE
Engine 3,996 cc V8 twin-turbo Engine power 620 hp at 6,200 rpm Engine torque 800 Nm at 2,250 to 4,500 rpm Electric motor 192 hp, 483 Nm System power/torque 800 hp at 6,000 rpm/950 Nm Battery type/capacity Lithium-ion/25.9 kWh Charging time/type 4 hours at 7.2 kW AC (estimated) Electric range 60 km (WLTP) 0 to 100 kmh 3.4 seconds Top speed 312 kmh (135 kmh EV mode) Fuel efficiency 2.08 L/100 km (combined WLTP) Agent Lamborghini Singapore Price S$1,150,000 without Certificate of Entitlement Available Now
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