Luxury auto brand Bentley proposed its BEV transformation program this year, and aims to attain 100% electrification by 2030, which embarks from 2025 when the company would announce its first and unordinary BEV.
A car that costs NT$8 million has nothing to do with affordability, however, a Bentley model that costs “merely” NT$8 million is somewhat reasonable.
Bentley is currently a subsidiary of the Volkswagen Group. As a hundred-year-old luxury auto brand, the company is firmly established in the industry, yet it has to tackle the EV revolution just like anyone else. Despite Volkswagen being one of the auto manufacturers with the fastest progress in electrification, Bentley has been relatively slow in the same direction.
Bentley announced the Beyond 100 electrification strategy at the start of this year, which aims to attain 100% electrification by 2030, and release a total of 5 BEVs, with the first one seeing the light of day in 2025. Bentley CEO Adrian Hallmark revealed some news regarding the new vehicle during an interview today.
According to Hallmark, the vehicle will have an exceedingly explosive acceleration capability. Although the acceleration of EVs is not the selling point of Bentley, the company is going to allow car owners and passengers to perceive a riding experience that takes no effort, Hallmark said.
Bentley believes that the EV model will double in horsepower judging by the horsepower of the existing GT Speed 650, which offers an ever stronger sense of acceleration.
“The thrill of 2.4 seconds to 60 mph (~97 km/h) is great about 10 times. Then it just becomes nauseous,” commented Hallmark, who said owners are free to choose between the comfortable 2.7 seconds or the extreme 1.5 seconds, which can be adjusted according to their preferences.
The first EV of Bentley will be equipped with an ultra-large 1,400 horsepower, which according to Hallmark, merely requires 1.5 seconds for an acceleration from 0-100, and completely overwhelms Tesla Model S Plaid and Lucid Air Dream Performance that are currently the fastest on the market, assuming that the vehicle does get produced at the end. Despite numerous technical challenges to overcome, price tag is not one of them.
Aside from acceleration, another factor that was revealed is the price tag. Hallmark estimates that one of the models would be priced at roughly EU€250K (approx. NT$7.6 million), which undoubtedly is a much better offer compared to other competitors, though what is interesting is that it is a relatively affordable model for Bentley.
As pointed out by Hallmark, Bentley’s V12 engine costs almost ten times to that of engines adopted by luxury vehicles on the market, though it becomes cheaper when it is switched to batteries and motors. According to Hallmark, Bentley is looking forward to the transition to batteries since it would be comparatively cheaper in cost.
There have been too many high-end EVs that make theoretical promises, and those that talk about guarantees based on facts and actions are definitely more trustworthy. Bentley, as a hundred-year-old brand, has invested US$3.4 billion in building a “dream factory”, which is why this EV may be the only opportunity for a lot people to get close to Bentley.
(Cover photo source: Bentley)
