The wait is over.
Bentley has named its first electric car. It’s the Torcal. A new luxury SUV. Coming to London on September 23 to change the game or at least start it.
You might have guessed Barnato. The press certainly did. You would be wrong. It is Torcal.
Like the Bentayga and the Batur it gets its moniker from a place. Specifically El Torcal de Antequara in Spain. Those jagged limestone formations? That’s the vibe. The name also nods to the Latin torquere torque. It works on both levels.
Frank Steffen Walliser Bentley’s boss calls it “extraordinary” and “the most considered car in our history”. He sounds proud. Maybe defensive? US EV sales are tricky right now. Anyone looking at those charts would hesitate before dropping a massive new platform.
It may just be the most considered car in its history
Let’s look at what we know because Bentley is keeping tight lips.
It is small for them. Under five meters long. Shorter than the Bentayga. It uses the face of last year’s EXP 135 concept. Upright grille. Monolithic boxy shapes. Inside it gets weird. Curved screens. An Audi multifunction stalk on the wheel column. Yes really. Traditional luxury meets weird tech integration.
Here is the meat though. The hardware.
It sits on the Porsche Cayenne Electric platform. That is significant. An 800-volt architecture means it charges fast. Ten minutes for a hundred miles. Maybe 108 kilowatt hours of battery. Robin Paige says expect 300 to 350 miles of range. That is decent.
Power? Dual motors. AWD is standard.
If they copy the Cayenne spec exactly we could be looking at everything from 402 horsepower on the entry level to a bonkers 1139 horsepower on the top model. That is a wide gap. Which one are we getting first? Bentley won’t say yet.
Does this kill the gas-powered Bentayga? No.
That SUV lives. It gets a refresh later in the decade. This isn’t an abrupt switch. Bentley is walking slowly toward electric. The Torcal expands the lineup. It offers a choice rather than forcing your hand.
Smart play? Or just slow?
The name is unique. The specs are competitive. The future is here but Bentley is dragging its feet a bit. What do you think about an EV with an Audi gear stalk inside
