Bentley boss on the new small electric SUV: "we are not looking for high sales"

Bentley's boss Frank-Steffen Walliser has been talking to TopGear.com about next year's new 'luxury urban EV'. That's obviously not going to be its real name, just a placeholder.

Why are they calling it ‘urban’? Is it a range issue – can't you go very far out of town? “You can do. This is a Bentley. You can always go for a grand tour," said Walliser. "The size of the battery is impressive. Charging speed is the best you can get. So it gives you very good range, very good travel time.

"And Bentley owners don't do 1,000km [600 miles] in a day. That's for truck drivers. Bentley owners take the plane.”

But he insists the EV tech will be the best his group has to offer. “It will push the boundaries in charging speeds, energy density, package, power of the electric motors, efficiency of the motors, all that stuff. The top notch of the [VW and Porsche] Group. In Bentley we have access to this high-end technology and high-end parts. Other players in our segment don't have this.”

Who, by the way, are the rivals? Aston Martin, Ferrari, Rolls-Royce, he says. Plus internecine competitor Lamborghini, which doubtless does have that technology access. And Top Gear is thinking Rolls-Royce is part of BMW, hardly EV laggards.

That tech is the new Porsche/Audi setup, under the Macan EV and A6/Q6 e-trons. Porsche has said the platform is good for 900-plus horsepower. The Bentley will be a little longer and a fair bit wider than the Macan, whose top spec at the moment is 630bhp from two motors and a 95kWh, 800 volt battery that can charge from 10-80 per cent in 21 minutes.

It'll do 382 miles WLTP, but the Bentley will be draggier so likely less rangey unless it has a bigger battery. Whatever, we've found the Macan and Audi to be impressively efficient for their size.

Anyway, the ‘urban’ bit then. “It's more compact in the dimension of length and height. So a more compact car... for a Bentley.” It's a squeak less than five metres long. He has shown a sketch. It has a falling roof-line for aero and the de rigueur coupé cachet, a rising line at the base of the rear side windows, and strong haunches. Is the design finished? He smiles and implies not quite. “We've shown just an outline. Wait a little bit.”

That wait is until the end of 2026 when it'll be shown in full. Production is early 2027. A big area of the Crewe factory has already been cleared to build it and the machinery is going in.

As an additional model to the Continental GT/GTC, Spur and Bentayga lines, will it greatly expand Bentley's sales? The launch of the Continental family boosted sales by an order of magnitude after 2003. “Not fully incremental, because you have people consider a Bentley in general and then maybe they go for our electric car. But it's an addition, something new that will drive additional business, we expect.

“But Bentley is not a volume business. So we are not looking for high sales numbers. We want to make it even more unique and special for the customer. We are looking for high margin per car.”

So this one electric Bentley is on course. But since arriving as CEO – he was previously in charge of future model strategy for Porsche – Walliser has decided to defer the date for the company to go all-EV from 2030 to 2035.

Why? Walliser says Bentley is still investing heavily in EV but if you ask customers what they want they tend to ask for the same as they already have, but a bit better. “It's difficult for a customer to judge the impact of a new technology that's a complete change of subject.”

Plus different areas are going electric at different speeds – China fastest, then Europe, the US slower, Middle East unclear, Japan and other Asian countries slower, Africa not at all. Bentley sells everywhere.

“If you're fully electric, you're fully electric. Why take a full risk in only one or the other direction? It would also be completely wrong to offer only ICE and have no electric. Some people are just rejecting ICE cars and saying I only want an electric car. Also we have a high acceptance of the plug-in hybrids.

"So it's risk management. Don't put all your eggs in one basket.”