BENTLEY

Luxury brand will ride the wave of electrified

Luxury car manufacturers are taking a different approach to the switch to electric power. The timeline for transitioning to the production of electric vehicles of a particular brand depends heavily on whether the company has strategic partners and focuses on different target audiences. Bentley, owned by the aggressively electrifying Volkswagen Group, will launch its first electric car in 2025.

This is a rather long period of preparation for the “electric debut”, considering that in 2019 the EXP 100 GT concept was introduced, combining four electric motors with a power reserve of 700 km and an acceleration time to 100 km/h in 2.5 seconds. Earlier, brand representatives admitted that Bentley's electric vehicles can be unified at the platform level with Audi's cars. By 2030, Bentley will completely stop producing cars with internal combustion engines, and by 2026 there will be no models without electric traction motors at the plant in the brand's range.

Bentley customers can already order plug-in hybrids of the Bentayga crossover and Flying Spur sedan, but only after a comprehensive rebuild of the British Crewe plant will the company be able to mass-produce electric vehicles. According to representatives from Bentley Motors, £2.5 billion (US$3.4 billion) will be spent on retrofitting the plant and related purposes, and in the near future the company will refuse to produce twelve-stroke internal combustion engines. cylinders. The company employs 4,000 highly qualified specialists with extensive experience in small-scale car production, taking into account the individual wishes of customers. They will find decent work after transitioning to electric vehicle production.

Last year, Bentley's revenue grew 31% due to growing demand for cars in the higher price segment. Sister brand Lamborghini has earmarked $1.7 billion to develop production of rechargeable hybrids. From next year, it will stop producing models equipped exclusively with internal combustion engines. The Aventador will be replaced next year by a sports car with a 12-cylinder internal combustion engine, which is part of a plug-in hybrid powertrain. The first “pure-bred” Lamborghini electric car will appear in the second half of the decade, it will belong to the GT class with a “2 + 2-seat” seating formula and two doors. Rolls-Royce, a competitor to Bentley, has also promised to switch exclusively to electric drive by 2030, but has already nominally introduced its first electric car. 

Image source: Bentley Motors