Lamborghini is experimenting with active camber and toe control to improve handling.

Lamborghini's Active Wheel Hub modifies camber and toe on the fly, as we discovered on the test track with the Huracán.

It's not every day that we get to see a whole new piece of automotive technology for the first time. But that seems to be what Lamborghini has achieved with its Active Wheel Carrier, which we have now tested in prototype form. The technology is both innovative and sophisticated, but its primary function is straightforward: to provide real-time adjustment of camber and toe alignment settings while the vehicle is in motion.

According to Lamborghini's chief technological officer, Rouven Mohr, this is one of the last frontiers of vehicle dynamics. Suspension geometry is often predicated on a series of trade-offs, with the loads imposed by a moving automobile necessarily altering at least some of them. And track-alignment settings can cause earlier tire wear on the street, which is why many high-performance vehicles include track-alignment settings and need switching back and forth. Gaining active control in two planes—toe, which is the angle of the spinning wheel respect to the direction of travel, and camber, which is the side-on angle related to the ground—means that many of these tradeoffs may be avoided. Based on our experience driving a Lamborghini Huracán development mule at Porsche's Nard test track in Italy, the findings are really spectacular.

The concept is not new, and Mohr acknowledges that work on it was being done at fellow VW sister Audi when he worked there before. However, in addition to the technology necessary to move the wheel in two planes, the problem is developing a control system capable of doing it rapidly and precisely enough to maximize the advantages. Lamborghini is setting the standard in this field.

The technology is only available on the Huracán prototype's rear wheels. Active toe control is essentially a reverse-steering mechanism. We've had them before, of course, but this one can also shift the wheels between toe-in and toe-out, where the front edges point very slightly toward each other. To put it simply, toe-out makes an automobile more reactive and eager to turn, but toe-in improves high-speed stability.

Active camber control is more ground-breaking. When a vehicle is cornering, it leans over and the suspension compresses, changing the connection between the tire tread and the road surface. The impact is far less noticeable on something as low and solidly supported as a Lamborghini supercar, but it is still important since it generates unequal pressure distribution on the tire's contact surface, which diminishes grip. To compensate for this, many performance vehicles have negative camber (the tire leans in on its inner edge), however this diminishes straight-line traction and increases tire wear. The capacity of the Active Wheel Carrier to change based on load is effectively a "have your cake and eat it too" approach, enabling the tire to deliver up to 25% more cornering force, according to Lamborghini.

It's More Revolutionary Than It Appears

Close inspection reveals that the Active Wheel Carrier is not a dramatic leap forward. At first glance, it seems to be a huge hub assembly, with one face mated to the half-shaft connecting to the gearbox and the other to the hub that supports the wheel. However, the relative angle between the two sides is changed by two spinning flanges inside, one regulating camber and the other toe. These are operated by 48-volt electric motors using gears. The technology is solely intended for the rear wheels; Lamborghini currently employs twin-motor electric torque vectoring on the front wheels of the Revuelto, which will most likely be employed on the Huracán successor.

The Active Wheel Carrier has a toe adjustment range of 6.6 degrees in each direction and a camber range of 2.5 degrees positive to 5.5 degrees negative. Both planes may be altered simultaneously, and the electric motors can do so at speeds of up to 60 degrees per second. Even the most severe change—from full toe-in to full toe-out—could be completed in less than a quarter of a second, but most alterations will be considerably smaller adjustments.

The hardware, according to Mohr, is the easy part here. Controlling the Active Wheel Carrier necessitates a very sophisticated dynamic control system that will eventually have to collaborate with stability control, torque management, and active aero systems. But that's in the future; for the time being, the prototype is being driven in a rear-wheel-drive Huracán Evo with no traction or stability control.

Operating an Active Wheel Carrier

Our test drive took place at Porsche's massive Nard proving field in southern Italy, where we initially drove six new Lamborghinis (including the Revuelto, Urus Performante, Huracán Tecnica, and Huracán STO). We got to see the difference the system makes on the massive steering pad—several acres of asphalt that allowed for safe experimentation—before entering the 3.9-mile handling track.

Starting with the system turned off and the Evo's rear suspension in its default setting, vigorous driving exhibits both understeer on cold tires and a swift shift to oversteer when the rear grip is surpassed. When the Active Wheel Carrier is on, the Huracán feels more gripping and reactive, eager to change direction (owing in part to the rear-steering impact of toe adjustment), but also significantly more stable when pushed to the edge of adhesion.

Moving to the handling track allows you to drive back-to-back stints with the system turned off and then on. The V-10 snarls as it devours the ratios of the seven-speed dual-clutch gearbox, as it usually does in the Huracán. It was painful to think that we were seeing one of the world's most iconic engines in a new vehicle for the final time; the Huracán successor will have a twin-turbo V-8.

But we've come to Nard for the chassis, not the engine. When driving with the AWC turned off, the first surprise on the handling track is how much work the Huracán's stability control normally needs to do under intense usage. Without it, the Evo prototype has substantial front-end push in tighter bends and feels hesitant when forced to turn into faster corners, notably the rapid left-hander at the conclusion of Nard's 0.6-mile-long main straight.

The change is instant and noticeable when Active Wheel Control is enabled. The rear axle seems to have acquired substantially more grip. The prototype gains traction quickly in slower bends, but it also seems considerably more stable at greater speeds and in quicker curves. The system's actual alterations are minor, notably in terms of camber. Speaking with Mohr indicates that changes are often mere fractions of a degree, with several corrections occurring per second. However, the benefits are dramatic, and with AWC engaged, this aging Huracán seems like a completely different vehicle.

The most serious issue is one of overconfidence, according to Mohr, who concedes that drivers encountering AWC for the first time often believe it is capable of rectifying blatant loss of control, which it is not. However, the system's impact may be quantified: On the handling track, our quickest lap with AWC on was 4.8 seconds quicker than without, and although this impact is less noticeable for more experienced drivers on more familiar circuits, it is still noticeable. Even a Lambo pro driver is supposedly 2.8 seconds faster with AWC at Nard. This is comparable to the benefit of moving from sport tires to street-legal semi-slicks.

Other changes enabled by the technology include wider front tires relative to the rears, slightly softer springs to allow for more roll (which active camber can adjust for), and the intriguing possibility of running different tire compounds front and rear to maximize benefit from the improved grip. The devices' motors would very certainly be updated to run on 400 volts, which would be supplied straight from the plug-in hybrid battery pack.

While AWC is now simply an experiment, it is overwhelmingly probable that it will play a role in Lamborghini's future—most likely the Huracán successor that will come next year.