Bentley further delays all-electric plans as it adopts plug-in hybrid | Wilnesh News

Bentley Motors has once again delayed its goal of offering exclusively all-electric vehicles and plans to continue its shift to plug-in hybrid electric vehicles until at least 2035.

The British maker of ultra-luxury performance cars said on Thursday it still had “ambitions to produce only all-electric vehicles from 2035” but would need to make adjustments due to changing market conditions.

Frank-Steffen Walliser, Bentley’s chairman and chief executive, said there is currently “not a lot of customer demand” for electric vehicles. But he said carmakers needed to meet legislative requirements and prepare for a new generation of customers.

“There’s no question that legislation is driving electrification … but it’s also driving competition,” Walliser said during an online media event Thursday. “We have to be honest, there’s not a lot of demand.”

this VolkswagenThe automaker initially said in 2020 that it planned to offer exclusively all-electric vehicles by the end of the decade. Former CEO Adrian Hallmark said days before leaving the company that those plans would be delayed by a few years, but gave no set timeline.

Bentley said it plans to launch a new electric car or plug-in hybrid every year until 2035, and launch its first electric car, a “luxury city SUV” in 2026.

“We want to produce plug-in hybrids as long as the market and customers demand them,” Bentley’s head of research and development Matthias Rabe said at a press conference on Thursday.

Rabe said Bentley may continue to launch vehicles with traditional internal combustion engines in the coming years.

Walliser, who took over from Hallmark in July, said the automaker’s first electric vehicles will be smaller than its traditional vehicles, including the current Bentayga SUV.

Hallmark previously said delays in Bentley’s first all-electric car were due to software issues and difficulties developing the vehicle’s architecture to Bentley standards. He has said those challenges were the main driver behind delays in his electric vehicle plans, rather than changing market conditions.

“Four years on from Bentley’s original Beyond100 strategy, we have adapted to today’s economic, market and legislative environment to launch a phase of significant change for tomorrow,” Walliser said in a press release.

Along with these changes, Bentley is also changing the name of its business strategy from “Beyond100” (a nod to the century-old automaker) to “Beyond100+”.

Bentley is known for its luxurious, large and powerful vehicles, with 12- and 8-cylinder engines, and special or exclusive edition models can cost millions of dollars. However, the automaker halted production of its famous “W12” engine earlier this year as it focuses on PHEVs with 8- and 6-cylinder engines.

Plug-in hybrids use an internal combustion engine combined with a hybrid powertrain and have a larger battery than a conventional hybrid as well as a plug to charge the vehicle’s battery. They typically allow drivers to drive a certain number of miles on the battery before the engine is needed to power the car or truck.