Bentley to launch five electric vehicles starting 2025

Bentley announced it is to commit $3.43 billion to prepare for the transition into the electric vehicle manufacturer. The money will be spent on upgrading its manufacturing facility, R&D, and development of five new electric vehicles, with the very first electric Bentley to see daylight in 2025.

Interestingly, the new electric Bentleys are not designed as replacements for current models - the company has an ambitious plan of carving out a completely new market niche for its EVs. The first model is in its final design approval stages and we should see the first prototypes early next year. Once it goes on sale in 2025, Bentley will unveil one new EV model every year until 2030.

Electric Bentleys will of course use the VW Group-supplied technology, but not all cars will be using the same platform. The company waited this long before committing to EV production simply because the technology was not up to its requirements. With the latest SSP platform to replace the current MEB by 2028, it is fair to say only the first electric Bentleys will use the older platform, while the later models will be the first to use the next-gen technology.

Bentley’s issue with the MEB platform was the battery technology but this has been addressed with the latest updates and the company promises its first EV will have at least 300 miles of range. While the factory in Crewe undergoes a $3.43 billion upgrade, the first electric Bentleys will be assembled in Hanover, Germany. Alongside the Bentley, a new electric Audi will be assembled as well - both cars will share a lot of components.

That last info gives away far more than Bentley probably intended - that new Audi is the Audi A8, which will retain a lot of features of the Audi Grandsphere concept vehicle. It will be built on the PPE platform, rather than MBE - that means a Porsche Macan powertrain and at least 100 kWh battery. We can safely assume that the new electric Bentley will use the same tech with two electric motors pushing out 595 hp (450 kW) and 740 lb-ft of torque - not that far behind the Bentley Mulliner Batur.

Bentley is transitioning to a completely carbon-neutral company, it wants to install additional 10,000 solar panels at its Crewe factory to take the total to 40,000 units. The company is moving its heritage fleet to biofuels and by 2025 all of its dealerships will be carbon-neutral as well.

Adrian Hallmark, CEO of Bentley, promised last year that the first electric Bentley would have as much as 1,400 hp and would be capable of accelerating from 0 to 60 mph in a mere 1.5 seconds. While back then those numbers looked ridiculous, the new SSP platform from VW can support up to 1,700 hp output - this is how quickly the EV technology moves.

Via