An all-new electric Bentley is being promised by the Crewe-based company, with the luxury car maker’s first EV production car chalked up for a 2025 release.
Though the Bentley team has already given us a glimpse of what an EV version may look like, following their EXP 100 GT concept, which was unveiled last year, the company’s design director admits that getting the styling right for the futuristic car is not as easy as just dropping a battery powertrain into the space where a combustion engine used to live.
Bentley design director Stefan Sielaff said: “We are experimenting at the moment with an EV. My instinct is to create an EV which is a very modern step forward. It always has to be a Bentley, but the proportions of an EV will look different.
“If we look at the Taycan, it’s still a Porsche. If you look at Tesla, they don’t look deliberately dramatic. I admire, as a designer, BMW for doing the i3, but if you speak to customers, they say it looks ugly.”
He added: “We have to look at the bigger perspective and be brave. When it arrives at market, it has to be right. Bentley’s brand identity will be very helpful.”
When Bentley showcased the EXP 100 GT concept in the summer of 2019, it was described as a glimpse into the direction which luxury car manufacturers might take for EVs. Speaking at the time, Sielaff said, “The EXP 100 GT is the kind of car we want to make in the future. Like the iconic Bentleys of the past, this one connects with its passengers’ emotions and helps them experience and safeguard the really extraordinary journeys they take.”