Lamborghini is considered one of the best supercar brands in the world, but don’t expect it to launch an all-electric supercar anytime soon. Lamborghini Chief Technical Officer Maurizio Reggiani doesn’t see that happening, in part because he thinks that all-electric supercars, or hypercars as we’ve come to know them, can’t match the pure performance abilities that supercars with traditional international combustion engines have.

It is a bit surprising to hear Lamborghini’s chief technical officer, Maurizio Reggiani, outrightly dismiss the possibility of an all-electric Lamborghini. Granted, there is a part of what he’s saying that makes sense. Lamborghini, by and large, puts a big premium on its tradition. In fact, it holds its history in the same way that rival Ferrari does. The past is as big of a part of Lamborghini’s identity as the present and future. Somebody needs to protect that.

That’s fair, especially if we’re dealing with an automaker that has a history of launching ear-popping, V-12-powered supercars. Engine noise, in particular, plays a big part in the Lamborghini experience. So can you imagine what an all-electric Lamborghini is going to sound like? It probably won’t be as noisy, if it’s even noisy in the first place. That’s one of the reasons why Reggiani isn’t sold on battery tech enabling all-electric supercars. More importantly, Reggiani said that the specifications required by a super sports car “don’t exist with a battery pack,” especially in terms of energy and power.

Reggiani did say that the “idea” of what a supercar is depends on who you ask. According to him, Lamborghini considers a car a supercar if it can reach speeds of “more than 300 km/h (186 mph)” and if it can complete three laps on the Nurburgring race track.”

Those are fair qualifications, but it is still a little curious to hear this from a company that once said it had no plans to build SUVs, only to turn around and launch the Urus. It’s hard to imagine Lamborghini keeping this line of thinking given the recent trends in electric vehicles becoming bigger and bigger players in performance segments. And, for what it’s worth, Lamborghini is owned by the Volkswagen Group, which just sent the Volkswagen I.D. R all-electric race car to Pikes Peak to break the Hillclimb record for an all-electric vehicle. Guess what; the I.D. R did that convincingly.

There have also been numerous examples of automakers that have achieved the qualifications Reggiani laid out with their all-electric supercars. Startup automaker NIO, for example, brought its all-electric supercar to the Nurburgring and it did well for itself. It’s even capable of posting a top speed of 194 mph.

For now, Lamborghini appears to be set in its ways when it comes to supercars. It still plans to launch an electric plug-in hybrid version of the Urus, but any car that completely gets rid of international combustion engines is off the table. How long that position lasts is going to be interesting, especially now that a company like Tesla is calling its own shot with the next-gen Roadster.

Further reading

Read our full review on the 2017 Lamborghini Terzo Millennio Concept.

Read more Lamborghini news.