GoKawiilBentley provided flights from Washington, DC, to Monterey, California, and accommodation so Ars could ride in the Torcal, as well as some other things you can read about in the coming weeks. Ars does not accept paid editorial content.
MONTEREY, Calif.—Next month Bentley will reveal its first battery-electric vehicle. The British automaker is no stranger to electric motors; it now offers plug-in hybrids across its range, even replacing the Continental GT’s W12 with a new plug-in hybrid V8. The addition of electric motors perfectly suits the marque: what’s more Bentley than waves of effortless torque, after all? But until now, there’s always been a combustion engine along for the ride. Not so the Torcal.
Clad in plastic and wrapped in a multi-hued dazzle camouflage, it’s shorter in length and height compared to a Bentayga, although it is similarly voluminous on the inside thanks to the inherent packaging efficiencies of an EV. If the proportions remind you of a Porsche Cayenne EV, that’s because the two share quite a lot of the same basic engineering, albeit reworked by Bentley to suit its needs. The target is 300 miles (482 km) in EPA range or 600 km (373 miles) under WLTP, from the battery pack, and like the Cayenne, expect 400 kW DC fast-charging.
Credit: Bentley Bentley is targeting the sports SUV segment with the Torcal. It’s 5 meters (16 feet, 5 inches) long, which is shorter than a Bentayga. Bentley is targeting the sports SUV segment with the Torcal. It’s 5 meters (16 feet, 5 inches) long, which is shorter than a Bentayga. Credit: Bentley
Don’t expect the Cayenne’s quadruple-figure power output, though. “We’ll be well over a thousand newton-meters of torque [737 lb-ft], which is one of the sort of enabling pillars of the technology, which is fantastic. There’ll be over 850 PS [838 hp/625 kW], but we’re not chasing four figures,” said Martin Page, product line director for the Torcal.
“Our calibration for the linear performance of the car has been focused on how do we make the progression feel effortless, feel, again, confidence-inspiring, and we feel at the limit of comfort for our customers so that, again, they feel like they can access the full potential of the car on a regular basis. And that’s been the kind of guiding principle throughout, is that access to it,” Page said as he drove us around Pebble Beach in a preproduction car that has been here in the US doing localization testing.