All-Electric Bentley Still A Possibility, Bentayga PHEV Coming In 2018

Bentley asked its design crew to sketch an all-electric model as a proposal while the company confirmed that a PHEV version of the Bentayga is on the way.

Stefan Sielaff, Bentley’s new design director said to Autocar that his team was charged with drawing an all-electric model in order to spark a debate in the Bentley board.

“Of course we are looking – and by sketching out proposals we are provoking emotions,” Sielaff said. “Not every idea we have is for production, but the creation of something physical to debate allows us to test new ideas. We don’t want to be thinking in one direction all the time – we want to challenge conventions.”

At the same time, the rumoured plug-in hybrid version of the Bentayga was confirmed for 2018, with Bentley still thinking about whether they should build an all-electric model.

Bentley’s boss Wolfgang Durheimer repeated the company’s commitment to offer a plug-in hybrid powertrain on all of their models in the near future and added “It will give customers the range they are used to with the capability of running emissions-free in cities, for instance. That is a good compromise.”

“Full electric is less certain. I don’t see it as a priority at the moment for our customers, nor as being crucial to our brand values.”