The company announced that it would launch its first model of electric cars in 2025. They have a design that is under development for now. The company also said that with the success of this first model, they will completely revamp their cars and will build only electric cars within the next five years by 2030.
Bentley has been the name for British luxury cars, famous for its enormous petrol engines with 12 cylinders that emit large amounts of burnt fossil fuel. They say that with the world shifting towards more environmentally friendly sources of energy, they want to change their cars in the direction of greener earth as well.
Electric car batteries take a lot to build, so their claim to make Bentley an “end-to-end carbon neutral organization” is a stretch. However, the company’s spokesperson says that the company’s suppliers would have to figure out a way to make it happen.
Bentley cars are not something anyone can have. They cost around 130,000 pounds to 240,000 pounds apiece. With the electric vehicles, the company says that they want to make “financially resilient and recession proof” cars for everyone to buy.
The step could be a result of the ongoing pandemic of COVID-19. As with other businesses, car sales have significantly gone down over the year. The number of registered cars in 2020 fell by 1.6% as compared to 2019.
The industry hasn’t suffered from a recession this bad since 1982 as per the numbers of Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders. One thing that did improve in 2020 was the sales of electric cars, which went up by 76,000 more cars sold than the previous year.
Bentley also announced in June 2020 that they would have to fire 1000 of their employees to make it to the end of this year without going under. However, they ended up letting go of 800, 200 of which were contract-based employees.
Bentley’s chief executive, Adrian Hallmark, says that this new idea is a paradigm shift in how the company works.
He said, “Since 1919, Bentley has defined luxury grand touring. Being at the forefront of progress is part of our DNA; the original Bentley boys were pioneers and leaders. Now, as we look Beyond100, we will continue to lead by reinventing the company and becoming the world’s benchmark luxury car business.”
Halting All Other Production To Focus On Electric Cars
Hallmark added while talking about the commitment to completely switch to an electric line-up by the year 2030, “This is profound change for the industry, and we want to lead that change. We’re not frightened by it, we’re inspired by it. The most important thing is not to just make electric cars: we’ve got to make Bentleys. We’ve got to take 100 years of Bentley DNA and put it in a modern context.”
Bentley is scheduled to release its first plug-in hybrid in 2021. This car would follow the already existing Bentayga Hybrids, a part of a previously committed commitment to offering a PHEV version of each model by 2030.
They also plan to be entirely committed to producing only hybrid cars by 2026, which will phase out into becoming completely electric cars by 2030. They have decided upon matches that on which the UK government announced to ban the combustion engine cars from being sold.
Bentley also wants to rearrange their employment policies and raise the numbers of black, Asian, and minority ethnic groups. They want the numbers to rise from 20% to 30% in the future.
Adrian Hallmark commented on the hiring policy as well, saying, “Within a decade, Bentley will transform from a 100-year-old luxury car company to a new, sustainable, wholly ethical role model for luxury,”
Germany’s Volkswagen initially owns Bentley, and they have decided to invest billions of euros in developing electric car technology. They took this step after their diesel gate scandal, where several engineers cheated on the numbers of emission tests with software.
European carmakers will face hefty fines if their emissions must be a certain amount, which will be around 37.5% by 2030. However, there might be a chance that Bentley would not have to take this test a decade later anyway.
I’m Ava Paul, an experienced news website author with a special focus on the entertainment section. Over the past five years, I have worked in various positions of media and communication at World Stock Market. My experience has given me extensive knowledge in writing, editing, researching and reporting on stories related to the entertainment industry.
