Bentley pushes back all-EV lineup timeline to 2035

Bentley is delaying the timeline for its planned transition to an all-electric vehicle lineup.

The luxury automaker unveiled the change to its "Beyond100" initiative on Thursday, announcing it will keep manufacturing plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) until 2035.

That marks a five-year extension from the plan it originally detailed in 2020, when Bentley unveiled a goal of transitioning to a lineup consisting of only battery electric vehicles (BEVs) by 2030. 

Under the new "Beyond100+" strategy, Bentley said it aims to release a new PHEV or BEV model "every year over the next decade" as it completes its move to become all-electric in 2035.

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"Four years almost to the day that Bentley initially outlined its Beyond100 strategy, we adapt to today’s economic, market and legislative environment to initiate a major transformation phase for tomorrow," Bentley CEO Frank-Steffen Walliser said in a statement. "Beyond100+ becomes our guiding light as we extend our ambitions beyond 2030, while maintaining our aim of a decarbonised future, including offering only fully electric cars from 2035, and reinforcing our credentials as the British creator of extraordinary cars for over a century and beyond."

Bentley will roll out its first fully-electric model – the "Luxury Urban SUV" – in 2026. It will be built at its Crewe headquarters.

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The automaker also said that three of its models – the Continental GT coupe, Continental GT convertible and Flying Spur – were "now exclusively offered with an Ultra Performance plug-in V8 hybrid powertrain."

That happened after Bentley stopped making its W12 engine over the summer as part of its then-Beyond100 strategy. The automaker built more than 100,000 W12s over the course of the engine’s lifetime.

Bentley made its first foray into hybrid vehicles with the Bentayga Hybrid several years ago.

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Over the first six months of 2024, Bentley delivered nearly 5,500 vehicles across its various modules, the automaker reported in late July. It completed a total of 13,560 deliveries in 2023.