{"id":781036,"date":"2026-09-24T12:08:13","date_gmt":"2026-09-24T12:08:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/781036\/"},"modified":"2026-09-24T12:08:13","modified_gmt":"2026-09-24T12:08:13","slug":"bentley-launches-torcal-as-luxury-rivals-pull-back-on-electric-cars","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/781036\/","title":{"rendered":"Bentley launches Torcal as luxury rivals pull back on electric cars"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Bentley<\/p>\n

British luxury carmaker Bentley Motors has launched its first fully electric vehicle, testing wealthy buyers’ appetite for going electric as it seeks to take on the likes of Italy’s Ferrari<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The all-new Torcal represents Bentley’s first fully electric car<\/a> in the company’s 107-year history and becomes the brand’s fourth model, alongside the Continental GT, Flying Spur and Bentayga.<\/p>\n

The car was designed and engineered at the company’s manufacturing site in Crewe in northwest England.<\/p>\n

It comes just three months after Ferrari’s divisive launch<\/a> of its first fully electric car, with analysts partly attributing some of the negative reaction to “design hate<\/a>.” The Luce model, Ferrari’s first-ever five-seater car, marked<\/a> a stark shift in appearance from the iconic brand’s traditional sports cars. <\/p>\n

A handout image of the Bentley Torcal as it makes its global debut.<\/p>\n

Bentley Motors<\/p>\n

Frank-Steffen Walliser, chairman and CEO of Bentley Motors, told CNBC’s “Squawk Box Europe<\/a>” on Thursday that the Torcal “sits also from the price band at the entry level for Bentley and we have received already very positive reactions from all markets.”<\/p>\n

The Torcal was unveiled at an event in London on Wednesday evening. The model has a range of up to 600 kilometers and can reach 60 miles per hour in just under three seconds. <\/p>\n

Its starting price is \u00a3173,000 (around $229,000), significantly less than Ferrari’s Luce, which was priced at 550,000 euros (roughly $626,000).<\/p>\n

Asked whether Bentley had learned any lessons from the launch of the Luce, Walliser said: “No, not really, because you know the car industry is very long term, the development and engineering of the cars takes years. This is a four-year cycle, so you cannot just react on anything a competitor is doing.” <\/p>\n

He added: “We see ongoing acceptance, I would say, for the electric cars. There is also more knowledge on the customers and our clients, they were very much aware on what the technology can do.” <\/p>\n

Other sports car manufacturers, notably Porsche and Lamborghini, have scaled back on plans to launch their own EVs due to weak demand. <\/p>\n

Bentley’s Walliser said wealthy buyers’ acceptance of going electric is “growing,” however, saying the company sought to make what he described as a “true Bentley” by focusing on issues such as the design, driving behavior and soundscape.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"British luxury carmaker Bentley Motors has launched its first fully electric vehicle, testing wealthy buyers’ appetite for going…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":781037,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[7984,84,273,79147,59,711,1217,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-781036","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-autos","tag-business","tag-business-news","tag-ferrari-nv","tag-gb","tag-luxury","tag-transportation","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/781036","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=781036"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/781036\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/781037"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=781036"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=781036"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=781036"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}