Lamborghini and MIT collaborate on self-healing, semi-autonomous supercar

Massachusetts Institute of Technology revealed the Lamborghini Terzo Millenio supercar at its annual EmTech conference. The Italian car builder collaborated with MIT to include advanced features like self-healing bodywork and semi-autonomous driving systems in the Terzo Millenio.

The new concept car also marks Lamborghini’s first all-electric vehicle. Each wheel comes with an electric motor of its own, but instead of being powered by large battery packs, Lamborghini and MIT integrated supercapacitors that can charge and discharge faster and store more energy in a given footprint.

The bodywork design reminds of the Centenario one combined with that of Veneno, showing more straight lines. The entire bodywork is made of carbon fiber panels that double up as energy-storage materials, acting as an additional battery. The panels can also detect cracks and “heal” them by preventing their expansion.

Lamborghini states that the autonomous driving functions of the Terzo Millenio represent the closest technology to production, and its 2019 cars could integrate it. Even though the Italians are mostly against fully autonomous cars, they believe that the supercars of the future can instead act as coaches for their owners, demonstrating the best line around a certain track and essentially helping with developing better piloting skills. It is not clear if MIT and Lamborghini opted to use Nvidia’s, AMD's or Intel's deep learning chips.

The Terzo Millenio is solely a concept car that demonstrates what possible paths can be taken for future production models. Apparently, Lamborghini is ready to part ways with the signature V12 engines and also integrate extensive AI systems in its future cars.

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