Bentley Torcal Loses Its Camouflage: The First Electric Bentley Nears Customers

The camouflage is off. On 29 October Bentley announced that its development fleet for the Torcal, the first fully electric Bentley, has completed more than 1,000,000 km of testing around the world, and that the car is "ever closer to customer deliveries". A week earlier, on 22 October, Crewe released the specification of the Torcal First Edition.

Revealed in London on 23 September, the Torcal is a four-door SUV of about five metres, Bentley's fourth model line alongside the Continental GT, Flying Spur and Bentayga, and, according to Electrek, its shortest four-door. It is designed, engineered and built in Crewe, England.

The key figures

• Torcal: 821 PS and 1,194 Nm, 0-60 mph in 3.3 seconds, 155 mph top speed. Torcal S: 888 PS and 1,350 Nm with Launch Control, 0-100 km/h in 2.9 seconds, 260 km/h.
• Battery: 113 kWh net, 800-volt, energy density above 180 Wh/kg, weighing about 625 kg.
• Range: up to 600 km (375 miles) on the WLTP cycle; EPA figures are not yet available.
• Charging: up to 400 kW peak, with 10-80% in under 20 minutes, according to Bentley's figures reported by Electrek.

The testing programme ran from -38°C in Sweden to more than 40°C in desert heat, and from sea level to over 14,000 ft at Pikes Peak in Colorado. Bentley says the battery passed a two-hour fire-resistance requirement and an underside impact test with a 30 mm steel projectile fired at more than 100 mph, and engineers used extended reality to test the cabin's ergonomics digitally before parts existed.

What the First Edition adds

The launch specification brings 22-inch wheels in gloss black with Liquid Silver spokes, Graphene Grey calipers by Mulliner, a First Edition badge on the front wing and illuminated treadplates. Inside: bespoke quilting, a 1,780-watt, 28-speaker Naim for Bentley system with Dolby Atmos, powered front and rear doors and a switchable glass sunroof. "Illumination is woven directly into the architecture and surfaces of the car," says Robin Page, Bentley's Director of Design.

Crewe's first electric car is less about record numbers than about making a Bentley feel like a Bentley without a V8.

Bentley deliberately capped acceleration, Electrek notes, because most customers find more extreme figures uncomfortable. Prices and delivery dates have not been announced. The Torcal is the first step of the Beyond100+ plan, which aims to make Bentley exclusively electric from 2035.