Automaker Bentley to Go All Electric by 2030
Luxury automaker Bentley is climbing on the green bandwagon with an incentive to go all electric in ten years.
The British company, which is owned by Germany’s Volkswagen, plans to exclusively offer plug-in hybrid and electric cars by the year 2026 and to go fully electric by the year 2030.
Bentley’s very first full-electric vehicle is anticipated in 2025. The company will offer two unnamed plug-in hybrid models starting next year. Bentley’s only plug-in hybrid is currently the Bentayga SUV.
“The future of Bentley will be fully electric,” Bentley’s chief engineer, Matthias Rabe remarked. The company made the announcement during an event outlining its future direction.
“Within a decade, Bentley will transform from a 100-year-old luxury car company to a new, sustainable, wholly ethical role model for luxury,” Bentley CEO Adrian Hallmark said in a statement. According to the Chief Executive, the goal of the company is to be completely carbon neutral by 2030.
Hallmark said during the event that the company is “in a position” where it may be at breakeven. It was this past summer that the company said it would slash up to 1,000 jobs through a “voluntary release” program as its business plans have been “clearly derailed by the impact of the pandemic.”
“It’s not guaranteed but that’s clearly our mission,” Hallmark said, adding the company should achieve 10,000 sales this year. Last year the automaker sold 11,006 vehicles.
Hallmark has told Autoweek that “you’ve got to pick a point in time where battery power density, especially for bigger cars, is the liberator for us. We’ve always said that the mid-2020s is the time when you can expect to see 120-plus kilowatt-hour batteries coming through the supply chain.”
Disclaimer: We have no position in any of the companies mentioned and have not been compensated for this article.