2024 Lamborghini Revuelto Review: The Price, Pace And Thirst Of A 1,000 Horse Hybrid

Last fall, Lamborghini flew me halfway across the planet to drive the Revuelto for the plug-in-hybrid supercar's global press launch held on track at Vallelunga, just north of Rome. As hilarious as a hybrid Lambo sounded then, that day roaring around a circuit proved just how much a trio of electric motors can contribute to one of the most incredible cars on the planet, in which I drove the very fastest I've ever managed—then or since—in a motorized vehicle (other than airplanes, obviously).

The Revuelto's wizardry that day wasn't so much about the top speeds, though, but more so in how light and nimble a 4,000-pound scalpel somehow handled the relatively tight and technical Vallelunga racecourse. Hope for the electrified future springs eternal, since that day, among the jaded automotive media. And not just at Lambo, either.

Now, almost a year later and after a few dozen customer Revueltos landed here in the United States, a loaner recently arrived for me to drive up from Los Angeles to Monterey Car Week and back. Finally, a chance to test whether those early inklings of greatness might prove out for a $600,000+ high-performance hybrid on public roads.

Of course, at Monterey, Lamborghini officially debuted the Temerario as successor to the long-tenured Huracan. And, despite a somewhat unfortunate name for English speakers, the Temerario's specs sound almost more radical than the Revuelto's. Lighter, but with slightly less total power output from a similar tri-e-motor hybrid setup, plus two massive turbos bolted onto a V8 engine that somehow revs even higher than the Revuelto's V12, the Temerario proves once more that, just as that flight to Italy suggested, Lambo might not be into hybridization to save the planet. Rather, the name of the game is performance-enhancing electrons.

The Revuelto that arrived in my rhetorical driveway can reportedly put down a total of 1,001 horsepower when all three e-motors and the V12 work together, but the V12 nonetheless serves as the undeniable and unavoidable star of the show. Which only made me laugh all the harder each time I "fired up" my new Lambo in West LA, just for the tach to spin and dash lights to flash, despite the car being not-quite-ready to not-quite-rumble because the Revuelto always starts up in full electric mode. At least my neighbors stayed happy—the boring ones anyway, since a couple actually wanted to hear the V12 they could clearly see parked under trees collecting berries and bird droppings.

I never needed to worry about any of this at Vallelunga, but turns out that truly firing up the V12 requires then fiddling with the left dial on the steering wheel to switch from Citta mode to Strada. But even then, the V12 barks to life before refusing to rev for a few minutes, as the electric motors provide all motivation until such a time as the ECU decides to allow internal-combustion assistance.

So go right ahead and forget revving to redline immediately after a cold start as an alarm clock for the whole block because Norm asked for a quick taste. Then again, Norm, it's always best practice to let any engine—let alone an Italian V12—warm up plenty before pushing hard. And luckily the Revuelto's scant few miles of electric range suffice in the interim, another reminder that the hybrid powertrain mostly aims to complement and support the ICE, rather than contribute to full-on greenie-weenie commuting in silence.

Time on track irrefutably revealed the Revuelto's proficiency at one end of the performance envelope (mostly by absolutely shredding tires after just a handful of laps). But as I adjusted to the Revuelto's start-up procedure on my own time, I remembered that part of Lambo's goals of late involve broadening the potential use cases for Sant'Agata's spectacular supercars. And I don't just mean my beloved off-roading Sterrato, either.

Instead, perhaps thanks to the popularity and sheer financial success of the Urus super-SUV, Lambo now knows that thanks to modern adjustable damping, a single car can serve as track scalpel and daily driver simultaneously, and much more easily these days. Why not? I love the idea of leaving behind the jouncing and jolting, battling traffic, absolute misery of getting slapped in the face by the Aventador's horrific Magnetti Marelli automated manual transaxle in the past. And I certainly fell under the spell of the Revuelto's eight-speed automatic quite quickly, especially in Strada when the dual-clutch gearbox's tuning shifts just so buttery smooth.

Mounted transversely behind the V12, for improved packaging of the rear e-motor—but also optimized aerodynamics at top speed, of course—the actual gears slipped out of mind while driving around LA a few times, almost unnoticeable. Plus, the added forward gear ratio and trio of e-motors help to keep the V12 happy in the lower digits of the tach's range, as electrons complement the reduced torque of an engine tuned for high-end output and emotive sound engineering.

I enjoyed watching the electric output flare up a ring that surrounds the tachometer at the center of the digital gauge cluster. And those gauges serve quite well to impressively and intuitively keep track of so many features and modes and settings that the driver (and passenger!) can play with. Charging up the battery, staying in normal hybrid mode, silent stealthy operation—actually exploring each of the Revuelto's use cases requires little more than a quick fiddle with the steering wheel dials.

Unfortunately, none of the above applies to the central infotainment touchscreen. A journalist friend of mine argues that no supercar review should ever even mention infotainment—but he's wrong, especially in this case, because of the broader appeal of a Revuelto as daily driver. Lamborghini told us at Vallelunga that the Revuelto would ship with Apple CarPlay, yet the car that arrived for me in Los Angeles about 10 months later supposedly had not received that update yet.

Questionable. And yet, even just trying to connect my iPhone to Bluetooth or play music when physically plugged into the (admittedly very convenient) USB-C ports still failed or glitched or simply left me baffled by performing the same input repeatedly and expecting different results (Einstein's definition of insanity, anyone?). Even with a Lambo rep trying to coach me through the process, my music would play for a snatch of a single note of a song, then stop. 

But I had a road trip coming up, and no matter how good a V12 sounds, five or six or seven hours of steady-state cruising requires music. After a solid 40 minutes and probably 4,000 four-letter words, as I steadily approached Ferrari infotainment levels of frustration, I figured out the absolutely incomprehensible system. Not for CarPlay nor even to find controls on the center touchscreen, which I only used for climate adjustments, but instead by using a tiny field of five buttons on the rear of the lefthand spoke of the steering wheel.

Using those buttons, I flipped through a configurable portion of the gauge cluster, selected internal memory with my phone plugged in, then bumped out of that menu to select the phone separately, then jumped through music menus and eventually hit the center of the five buttons, for play. The whole system was very un-VAG, suffice to say, and not much like Lambo lately either. Especially when I needed to perform this series of exercises multiple times an hour after my phone disconnected randomly but regularly.

So, struggling with music, nav only on the phone and no Waze on the center screen to warn for cops, I proceeded to blast up to Monterey otherwise swaddled in a level of comfort never before seen on a Lamborghini supercar. With plenty of power, icy air conditioning blasting, bolstered but cushioned seats, and far more interior volume than the Aventador or even Huracan, too. But good thing I rode up solo, because anyone sitting in the passenger seat wouldn't have enjoyed piling under my motorcycle gear and helmet and duffel bag—with the frunk stuffed, I still needed way more space for the accouterments demanded by six days bouncing between car meets and Concours events and swanky evening soirees.

Meanwhile, I kept my phone propped up below the center screen and an eye on Waze, only exceeding the speed limit by a reasonably sane amount. And with the suspension set to the softest setting, there my phone stayed, never ricocheting around as the 5 and 46 and 101 freeways heaved in the summer heat. Tires noise never ruined the reverie and wind noise barely existed. Not even too many bugs hit the windshield because of the aggressive rake of such a lowslung wedge.

You'd think with the aerodynamics of a lowslung wedge, plus three electric motors to help the V12 sip more slowly, the Revuelto might do slightly better in the fuel economy department, though. Guess again! I left LA with about a third of a tank and needed to fill up twice on the way to Monterey despite never driving hard. Once I arrived on the peninsula, I only went for a few cruises because I mostly tooled around on a loaner Ducati Panigale V4S—hold tight for that story, one of GP shifting and suffering on the hottest saddle in the known universe, aka stop-and-go traffic.

Monterey Car Week is the main reason I got my motorcycle license in the first place, in fact, because the sheer logistics of working from 4 am to 11 pm every day for five days straight, squeezing writing in between events and drive experiences and debuts and track action at Laguna Seca simply demands the ability to lanesplit through some of the worse automotive congestion on the planet. Even if it is stunningly rare traffic, full of Ferraris and vintage Bugattis and Porsches of every era and, you guessed it, plenty of Lamborghinis. After a long series of long days, I will admit to hopping back in the Revuelto happy to know that the trip home would be as comfortable as the drive up.

Of course, even in a state of delirious exhaustion, I still couldn't resist the chance to rip back down to SoCal using as many back roads as possible while caravaning with a friend in his loaner McLaren 750S. We made an eye-popping duo in the small farming towns of the central valley, but an equally interesting duo in the context of the modern international supercar industry, too.

I previously drove the 750S at McLaren's North American press launch, and also left with the impression that the window of possibilities had been widened—albeit in a rear-wheel-drive, entirely internal-combustion, twin-turbo V8 lightweight. Yet the 750S thereby remains somewhat more engaging, with more precise steering than the Revuelto's electrically assisted system, a necessity given the ability to drive in full EV mode. The McLaren might even feel a little faster, or at the very least sketchier, when into full boost and raring down the road with rear tires scrabbling for traction—but of course, I drove it in the rain, so that doesn't help my attempt at purely scientific controlled experimentation.

Regardless, in reality the Revuelto is faster, boasts the confidence and cornering of all-wheel drive, pulls through and pushes out far better despite the additional weight. All with less drama and an unavoidable sense of sublime capability far surpassing the skill of human drivers, be they in Lamborghinis or McLarens. Therein lies the magic, but also some of the quandary: Does Lambo lose out on some of the exotic appeal by making a performance hybrid so eminently spectacular at the softer end of the spectrum? 

As we blasted down Carmel Valley and ripped through the tight canyons of the Santa Ynez, the V12 spirit and soundtrack piercing the air, I still used less than 70% of the surging spirit I felt lurking at another level of pace. Yet throughout, the sonorous engine remains so spectacular that, as at Vallelunga, the only evidence of hybrid assist appeared in the outright speed, and later in the tire wear.

Oh, yeah, and the gas receipts. Don't ask. Okay, fine, ask away. Over the course of 715 miles that I kept track of fuel consumption, I used 50.4 gallons for an average of 14.1 MPG. A little less than half of that, made up mostly of highway cruising, returned 15.4 MPG. Yet the Revuelto's tank also holds a middling amount of fuel, I learned when I ran to just about bone dry on the sprint home.

So much so, in fact, that I crept into a gas station in full Citta mode—no joke, as I noticed the fuel gauge plummeting precipitously, the battery showing just two miles of electric range, and the total range showing just five miles. All that with 12 miles of driving to go. My eyes wide, almost giggling with nervous energy, texting back to the 750S and asking for an aero tow for a bit of hypermiling, wondering how fun that terrible phone call might seem in hindsight later. We made it, barely, and I topped up the tank with just 15.749 gallons.

Not that such things truly matter for the average Revuelto buyer. But the kind of interesting details that the world's first 1,000-horsepower plug-in-hybrid demands that journalists suss out, right? My real-world efficiency certainly beat the Aventador's official ratings of 9 MPG city, 15 highway, and 10 combined—don't forget we're throwing in a few hundred extra horsepower and pounds, too.

And hey, even if Lamborghini prefers to focus on sustainability while building cars rather than flogging them, at least I saved the environment a bit on my road trip—wink wink, nudge nudge, as if my Revuelto-owning ego ever even came close to feeling any such proletarian qualms. Performance enhancing, indeed, the kind that leaves my mental backflips now very much focused on when, exactly, Lambo plans to fly me back to Italy for a go in the Temerario, now that the Revuelto set out to establish such a startling new standard in this liminal supercar era.