Bentley pushes back its fully electric deadline

Bentley has postponed its plans to go fully zero-emission by five years and has even committed to the production of a new petrol model next year.
The luxury carmaker’s new chief executive admitted that there is little demand for an electric Bentley from customers used to the throaty purr of a V8 or V12 engine.
Four years ago Bentley, the Crewe-based subsidiary of the German group Volkswagen, surprised the industry by committing to being fully electric by 2030, producing five new zero-emission models every year from 2026.
Earlier this year the company began to row back on its commitment. In one of his last public utterances before leaving Bentley to take the top job at Aston Martin, the former chief executive Adrian Hallmark said demand for its cars in partly electric plug-in hybrid form was remaining strong and so it would continue to make them for longer. However, he said that would only be a short pause and he expected Bentley to be fully electric by 2032 at the latest.
Just over four months into the job Frank-Steffen Walliser, the new chief executive parachuted in from Porsche, another VW associate brand, has pushed back even further on Bentley’s electric dream.
Unveiling Bentley’s revised plans, Walliser said the company was still committed to the production of its first electric vehicle, “an urban SUV” — smaller than Bentley’s existing SUV, the Bentayga — in 2026. But he said Bentley would continue to make plug-in hybrids “until the mid 2030s” and also “extend the internal combustion engine offer”.
The company confirmed that, far from the conventional engine being consigned to history, there will in fact be a new iteration of its bestselling model, the petrol Bentayga, in production from next year.
Bentley’s latest pledge is that it will now be “fully electric by 2035”. Explaining the decision, Walliser said: “From our customers there is not a lot of demand [for an electric Bentley]. They are careful in their consideration.”
He said industry-wide demand for electric cars was “in a dip”, saying there were “different speeds in different [vehicle] categories and countries” when it came to going zero-emission.
When Hallmark launched the original Bentley electric strategy in 2020, following the 100th anniversary of the creation of the company, he indicated that Bentley would be an industry leader. “We need to change and we need to change everything,” he declared.
Walliser said the first electric Bentley — for which the company refused any comment on specifications on range and power — will not be aimed at its traditional market.
“This will be for new customers who want a modern car and a modern interpretation of a Bentley,” he said.
The company said neither its change of strategy nor the problems at its parent company Volkswagen would affect the size of its 4,000-strong workforce.