The helmet fastened tightly under the chin, the neck pushing back against the headrest, the legs planted forward. The Lamborghini Huracan STO whizzes between burning accelerations, curves beyond physics and nailed by cardiac arrest, while the engine screams all its power: it is the unique emotion of the hot lap, the fast lap to be savored on the passenger side next to a professional driver, who squeezes the approximately 640 horsepower of the super sports car to the last.
Engines
Lamborghini: tomorrow the flying car, today the track car that goes on the road
by Vincenzo Borgomeo
Just one lap, starting from the pits to return 4.2 km later without going through the track, along the Misano World Circuit, the track named after Marco Simoncelli. One minute and forty seconds of pure delirium at night, illuminated only by the spotlights, while the attempt to film something sensible by holding the Oppo Reno6 Pro 5G fails: no effect images to publish on social media.
The adrenaline remains, which struggles to decrease, while there is time to recover and reflect on why a Chinese giant like Oppo chooses to associate its name with Lamborghini (and vice versa), sponsoring the Super Trofeo 2021 single-brand championship.
A shared idea
A first, initial answer revolves around the very concept of performance: keywords in the communication of both companies such as power (of the processor or engine), speed (processing or maximum on the track) and design (of the body or bodywork), as well as the very idea of a high-performance top-of-the-range product, would be enough to justify collaborations like this. And also to explain why in the past there has been no lack of partnerships of this kind: like the one between Oppo and Lamborghini, which in 2020 gave life to the Find X2 Pro Automobili Lamborghini Edition, inspired by the Aventador SVJ Roadster and accompanied by a wide range of coordinated accessories. And then, again, the one between Huawei and Porsche Design (for the Mate 20 RS of 2018) or the one between Oneplus and McLaren for the Oneplus 7t McLaren edition of 2019. There were already other collaborations to remember, such as those between Acer and Ferrari that spawned the Liquid E Ferrari Special Edition, or the initiative that brought Porsche Design and Sagem together to create the P9521 and P9522.
Technological convergence
However, there is much more: in the last ten years we have witnessed enormous progress in the automotive sector, which has seen the number and complexity of high-tech solutions used in our cars increase exponentially, making them look more and more like “Smartphone on wheels” (which also explains why the global chip crisis is hitting the industry so hard).
There are infotainment systems now completely devoid of physical buttons, to be used thanks to increasingly larger touch screens, equipped with digital assistants and navigable according to criteria that copy the operating systems of smartphones (as is the case for the new BMW Operating System 8 seen on the models iX and i4, or with the Mercedes MBUX), when they do not even coincide with them (the new Volvo full electric XC40 Recharge and C40 recharge, whose system is developed in collaboration with Google and based on Android). Or there are the ADAS (Advanced Driver Assistance Systems) technologies, which combined together generate (semi) autonomous driving even at Level 2 (out of 5). In “normal” cars, those with large sales volumes, the pervasiveness of hi-tech solutions (many of which developed in the field of telephony) has two main consequences: on the one hand it serves and will serve to progressively reduce the role of the driver to favor of safety, while increasing the sources of entertainment on board; on the other hand, it is already making possible that revolution called electrification, thanks to which we will convert first to the Hybrid, and then to the full electric with zero emissions, in the name of sustainable mobility.
“Augmented” pilots and photographers
On the other hand, in super sports cars, technology (especially AI) serves first of all to increase performance, as well as to make the electronic traction, stability or braking control systems more and more efficient (Brembo has recently presented a solution which exceeds ABS technology using artificial intelligence), because here the goal is not to replace the driver, but to artificially increase their capabilities. This is a bit like what happens with computational photography in top-of-the-range smartphones: just as in phones, just press a button and then super sophisticated hardware and software will take care of us to take excellent photos, in the same way modern sports cars allow us to to drive like pilots without having the skills.
Another element in common between traditional smartphones and new gadgets on wheels is connectivity: now practically all cars are produced with LTE, 4G and even 5G connection systems, which allow them to be monitored remotely with an app and to periodically update the software in Over-The-Air mode. Or, again, to develop integrated services that exploit the numerous sensors to collect information on traffic and air quality, for example: huge amounts of data to be analyzed in the cloud and on which to build new services for cities that become smart.
No longer just cars, but platforms
It all started with the first infotainment systems that allowed you to connect your smartphone to make calls without holding the phone. Then it continued with the advent of Apple Carplay and Android Auto, which made it possible to transmit a piece of our digital life (the one that distracts us least, and which includes services like Google Maps or Spotify) on the screen in the center of the dashboard. This is just the beginning: full electric cars are simpler objects from a mechanical point of view but increasingly complex as regards electronics and software. They are platforms on which to build new services and digital ecosystems around which a new economy is already emerging. Exactly as happened with smartphones.
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