Bentley has taken the wraps off the Torcal, the 107-year-old British automaker’s first fully electric vehicle and its first entirely new model line in a decade. The new luxury SUV will be sold alongside the Continental GT, Flying Spur and Bentayga as Bentley attempts to bring traditional buyers into the electric era without making the car feel like an appliance with a winged “B” glued to the hood.
The Torcal will be offered in standard and higher-performance Torcal S versions. Both use two electric motors, all-wheel drive and a 113.2-kWh battery. Bentley says the standard model produces 810 horsepower and 852 pound-feet of torque, accelerating from zero to 60 mph in 3.3 seconds. The Torcal S raises output to 876 horsepower and 996 pound-feet of torque with launch control, cutting the zero-to-60 time to just 2.8 seconds. That makes the S the most powerful production Bentley ever built.
Both models use an 800-volt electrical architecture and can accept as much as 400 kW at a suitably powerful DC fast charger. Bentley says a 10% to 80% charge can take approximately 16 minutes under ideal conditions. The company estimates a driving range of up to 375 miles using Europe’s generally optimistic WLTP test cycle. An official EPA range estimate for the United States has not been released, so American buyers should expect the eventual number to be lower.
At 197 inches long, the Torcal is slightly smaller than the Bentayga but hardly petite. Its styling introduces what Bentley describes as a cleaner, more progressive design language. The most distinctive feature may be its “Floating Diamond Grille,” which contains 76 individually applied illuminated diamonds. Although an electric vehicle does not require a conventional radiator grille, Bentley clearly decided that tradition should not be shown the door just because the gasoline engine was.
Inside, the Torcal combines curved digital displays with Bentley’s familiar emphasis on hand-finished materials. Buyers can select leather, a suede-like material called Dinamica and a new 100% merino-wool fabric developed with British clothmaker Fox Brothers. Another available finish, called Ombre Wood, is created from as many as 1,000 hand-selected layers of walnut that are pressed together and sliced into thin veneer.
Bentley has also developed an artificial propulsion soundtrack called the Bentley Dynamic Symphony. Instead of merely playing a recording of an engine, the system uses sounds produced by real musical instruments, including orchestral timpani and smaller drums. The sound grows in intensity as the vehicle accelerates and is intended to recall the character of Bentley’s celebrated 6¾-liter V8. Owners who prefer their electric Bentley without the percussion section can turn it off.
Bentley Chairman and CEO Frank-Steffen Walliser told Reuters that the company’s goal was to build “a Bentley first,” rather than create something unrecognizable simply because it is electric. The automaker says approximately half of the early interest has come from current Bentley owners, with the remainder coming from prospective customers new to the brand.
The Torcal will start at £173,000 in Britain, equivalent to approximately $230,000 at the exchange rate cited by Reuters. Official U.S. pricing has not yet been announced. The vehicle will be built at Bentley’s Crewe, England, factory, where the company says it has invested £350 million, or roughly $465 million, in preparation for production. U.S. sales are expected to begin in 2027, with the Torcal arriving as a 2028 model.
Bentley once planned to become an all-electric brand by 2030 but backed away from that timetable as luxury-EV demand developed more slowly than expected. The Torcal therefore will not replace Bentley’s gasoline and plug-in-hybrid models anytime soon. Instead, it is a very fast, very luxurious and very expensive test of whether Bentley customers are ready to trade the rumble of a V8 for the pounding of orchestral drums.