Lamborghini provided flights from Albany, New York, to Bologna, Italy, and accommodation so Ars could drive the Urus SE. Ars does not accept paid editorial content.
The original Urus was an SUV that nobody particularly wanted, even if the market was demanding it. With luxury manufacturers tripping over themselves to capitalize on a seemingly limitless demand for taller all-around machines, Lamborghini was a little late to the party.
The resulting SUV has done its job, boosting Lamborghini’s sales and making up more than half of the company’s volume last year. Even so, the first attempt was just a bit tame. That most aggressive of supercar manufacturers produced an SUV featuring the air of the company’s lower, more outrageous performance machines, but it didn’t quite deliver the level of prestige that its price demanded.
The Urus Performante changed that, adding enough visual and driving personality to make itself a legitimately exciting machine to drive or to look at. Along the way, though, it lost a bit of the most crucial aspect of an SUV: everyday livability. On paper, the Urus SE is just a plug-in version of the Urus, with a big battery adding some emissions-free range. In reality, it’s an SUV with more performance and more flexibility, too. This is the Urus’ Goldilocks moment.
