British automaker Bentley has revealed new details about its first all-electric car – and, to be frank, it sounds absolutely terrifying.
In a recent interview with Automotive News Europe, company CEO Adrian Hallmark claimed that the unnamed Bentley EV will boast an almighty 1,400 horsepower (1,044 kilowatts) and be capable of accelerating from 0 to 60mph in as little as 1.5 seconds.
The car isn’t slated to arrive until 2025, but those figures would put Bentley’s all-electric debut at the top of our list of the fastest accelerating electric cars in the world – a ranking currently capped by the Rimac Nevera, which can sprint from 0-60mph in just 1.85 seconds.
Despite the Bentley EV’s “brutal” speed, though, Hallmark believes that the car’s biggest selling point will instead be its “effortless overtaking performance from a huge amount of torque on demand.”
“Most people enjoy the 30-70 mph acceleration, or in Germany the 30-150 mph acceleration,” the CEO said, adding that the “problem” with high 0-60 speeds is that the driver inevitably becomes “uncomfortable” and “nauseous”.
Bentley will, therefore, offer owners a ‘slower’ acceleration setting – one propelling them from 0-60mph in a mere 2.7 seconds – if owners find the car’s standard speeds too difficult to stomach.
As for how the beastly Bentley will look, the famously sophisticated automaker is keen to avoid falling into the same aesthetic traps as other EV manufacturers (the less said about the BMW XM, the better).
“What we will not do is try and make [our vehicles] look like electric cars,” Hallmark said, adding that the design of Bentley’s new saloon-cum-supercar will be an updated version of the brand’s existing look.
Bentley unveiled its EXP 100 GT concept back in 2019 as a means of exploring “how grand touring could look in 2035,” so there’s every chance that the brand’s first EV could bear more than a few aesthetic similarities to this spaceship-like model.
Naturally, though, that interstellar elegance will come at a price. CEO Hallmark told Automotive News Europe that at least one variant of the EV will cost in excess of €250,000 (that’s around $260,000 / £210,000 / AU$375,000).
In fairness, electric vehicles of this type cost an eye-watering amount to produce – the sheer size of the ion-lithium batteries required are the main culprit – and the price tag of the aforementioned Rimac Nevera sits at a tidy $2.4 million, but we’d still recommend saving those pennies as soon as possible.
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