Bentley Torcal leads a new strategy that keeps combustion and hybrid models in production while the brand slows its all-electric rollout.
Bentley’s CEO did not mince words when he described the plan the brand set six years ago as dead and not coming back the way anyone expected. Frank-Steffan Walliser confirmed Bentley has moved away from its target of going all-electric by 2030, a goal set in 2020, even as it unveiled the Torcal, its first fully electric model.
The Torcal arrives with up to 876 horsepower and uses a 113-kWh battery, an 800-volt electrical architecture and rapid DC charging. But the bigger story is what happens after it since combustion and hybrid power are not going anywhere soon.
Walliser told reporters the all-electric roadmap Bentley announced in 2020 simply does not fit today’s market. “This predictable planning is honestly gone, and I do not think it will come back” he said, pointing to shifting regulations and cooling demand for luxury EVs as the reasons behind the reversal, first reported by Autocar.
The Torcal itself already carries the scars of that hesitation. Coverage of Bentley’s revised Beyond100+ plan describes a delay of about a year for its first EV, tied to market uncertainty, changing rules and slower than expected growth in high-end EV demand rather than a single clear cause.
Rather than lock in another fixed 2030 deadline, Walliser wants Bentley building EVs and plug-in hybrids on the same line and shifting output toward whichever powertrain customers actually order. The refreshed Beyond100+ strategy now targets a fully electric portfolio by 2035, with plug-in hybrids staying on sale alongside battery models longer than originally planned.
“With all the planning and things changing, and I am sure regulators have new ideas every week, my answer is maybe not what you expect, we will bring in more flexibility in our strategies” Walliser said. Bentley is not alone in rethinking the speed of its transition, since Rolls-Royce has recently stepped back from its own goal of selling only EVs by 2030 even as it continues to build and sell V12 models.
2028 Bentley Torcal Electric SUV Bright Design Spec
Underneath the strategy shift sits a genuinely capable car. The Torcal uses a 113-kWh battery and an 800-volt electrical architecture, with the standard version rated at 810 hp and the Torcal S stepping up in output, hitting 60 mph in a claimed 2.8 seconds.
Bentley has already made clear this will not become a gas car wearing an EV badge or vice versa. The automaker previously said it has no intention of converting its first EV to combustion power, and Walliser confirmed there is no hybrid Torcal planned either, since the model’s dedicated EV platform is built to keep that identity intact.
The Torcal debuts as a 2028 model, with Bentley saying the electric SUV goes on sale in the United States early next year following its September 2026 reveal. Additional Bentley EVs are described as arriving only from the start of the next decade, with future models widely expected to use a version of Volkswagen Group’s upcoming SSP architecture rather than any current platform.
That gap between the Torcal and Bentley’s second electric model is the clearest sign of how far the company has stepped back from its original 2030 deadline. Combustion and hybrid Bentleys, including the automaker’s gas-engine lineup, will keep rolling down the same production lines well into the next decade.
Motor1’s Take Bentley is trading a clear date for a moving target, and that cuts both ways. The brand avoids locking itself into a 2030 promise it might have missed, but it also makes it harder for shoppers to know when an all-electric lineup will really arrive.
In practice this is a hedged bet more than a U-turn. Torcal still gives Bentley a halo EV to point to, yet most of its volume and profit will come from gasoline and hybrid cars for years, so the speed of that shift depends less new EV models and more on how quickly buyers walk away from combustion power.
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Source:
Autocar
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