Electric cars are great, but automakers have a long history of trying to force electrification where it doesn’t quite fit. Pickup trucks, sure, but also the very top of the market. A few years ago, Mercedes-Benz released an electric G-Class, and it didn’t go over so well. With 239 miles of range and a price tag that could easily crest $200,000 on a bespoke build, it was a tough thing to justify. On the other end of the spectrum, the EQS Maybach SUV offered proper range but looked like a Louis Vuitton egg. Oh, and has anyone figured out what Cadillac’s doing with the Celestiq yet? Thankfully, there’s now a new alternative. The Bentley Torcal is the first EV from Crewe and it seems to do just about everything right.
Under the skin of the Torcal, you’ll find a 113 kWh battery pack feeding dual electric motors, one on each axle. Total output stands at 876 horsepower on the S trim and 810 horsepower on standard models which, if you’ve been keeping track, is less than what an electric Porsche Cayenne Turbo makes. Still, 876 horsepower is plenty, and Bentley claims that the Torcal S will run from zero to 60 mph in 2.8 seconds. That’ll decant the sparkling water in the cup holder, alright. Range stands at 375 miles on the WLTP cycle, so expect a figure north of 300 miles on the EPA cycle. Does the Torcal need any more range than that? Likely not, as this sort of clientele prefers to fly for trips longer than 300 miles. Thus, 400 kW DC fast charging capability seems a little niche, but appreciated nonetheless.
Horsepower’s all well and good, but it needs handling hardware to be properly harnessed. With that in mind, let’s start with the Torcal’s absolutely enormous brakes. The standard iron discs measure out to 16.5 inches in diameter up front and 14.56 inches out back, but optional carbon ceramics bump those figures up to 17.2 inches up front and 16.1 inches out back. Of equal importance, the suspension on the Torcal is fully active, with dampers themselves that can be raised or lowered independently. This eliminates the need for anti-roll bars, which should offer superior cross-axle articulation over the bumpy stuff. Four-wheel steering’s also on deck, which promises to shrink the turning radius at low speeds and aid high-speed stability. In short, Bentley has thrown the kitchen sink at this thing, and that’s before we get to the sheer opulence aboard.
As you’d expect, the cabin of the Torcal is lined roof-to-floor in simply lovely materials. Hides, veneers, metals, even merino wool. However, that’s to be expected of any Bentley. What’s less expected is what splits the winged dashboard. It’s a big curved OLED infotainment screen a bit like the one in a Porsche Cayenne, and given the sheer size of the thing, it’s difficult to ignore. Still, at least it comes with Bentley-specific knurled physical controls, and there’s an optional extra you’ll want to pop for: the 1,780 watt, 28-speaker Naim 7.1-channel surround sound system with Dolby Atmos compatibility.
Judging by previous Naim for Bentley systems, this one should continue the tradition of being absolutely spectacular. The system in the Flying Spur is one of the best factory-fit stereos in the history of the world, and with an even quieter powertrain, the Torcal’s top audio setup has a lot to live up to.
Speaking of tech, kudos to Bentley for being one of the few automakers to figure out a tasteful application of ambient lighting. Instead of blasting RGB-colored light directly into your eyeballs, it gently casts waves of soft light on the lower door cards. Indirect lighting, that’s the move. Oh, and the doors are power-operated, with sensors preventing them from slamming into anything and real handles preventing them from being fussy.
Perhaps more importantly, the Torcal looks good. It’s assertive in a way that the slightly rotund Bentayga doesn’t quite match, but despite grafting the surfacing of a Continental GT onto a much larger form, it’s not overly aggressive. The only real point of contention is the illuminated faux-grille, which is just a little bit premier league. Still, this is a generally handsome thing, which is part of the reason the Torcal might be okay.
It’s no secret that the tides have turned in the ultra-premium EV segment. Rimac allocations go unsold, Rolls-Royce Spectres and Cadillac Celestiqs have depreciated significantly, and the going narrative is that electric power just doesn’t appeal at this price bracket. However, the Torcal is the shape the ultrawealthy want from a daily driver, it’s made of lovely stuff, and it likely won’t be otherworldly on price. Expensive, sure, but not half-a-million plus. More like half that. It also has more range than an electric G-Class, and once you add that to the mix, Bentley might have a winner on its hands. Deliveries should start next year, so we’ll know soon enough.
Top graphic image: Bentley
I actually had an MB G580, got rid of it because of the absolutely absurd range in the winter. That said, I was able to get 18% off MSRP, drove it for a year and sold it back to the dealer making a $7,000 profit. Not sure I could do that with the Torcal, although depending on pricing it may only be around $10k more than my Cayenne Turbo EV build and the interior is nicer and it doesn’t have that stupid passenger screen.
I’m not sure a more grotesque and tacky vehicle exists today.
Just wait until Masonry get their hands on it.
I don’t know about this one. For me, it’s evidence that rebadging and brand differentiation is going to be really difficult with EVs.
What set a Bentley apart in the past was the powertrain, the styling, and the interior appointments. This car can claim only the interior, and only partially.
There is far too much Cayenne everywhere. The greenhouse and rear hips especially, there’s no effort to hide the origins. The differentiation on the interior isn’t as big as I would like. It doesn’t scream Bentley to me in there.
And the powertrain, well, any carmaker will struggle to differentiate there going forward.
I watched the Mat Watson video of this where he was going through the details for some of it.
Bentley got rid of their trademark metal, tactile air vent adjusters and instead you point the vents using the stupid screen. Even BENTLEY WHO TALK ABOUT TACTILITY AND LUXURY are removing all switchgear.
He also went to where Bentley were advertising that the veneers were made and then had plastic directly injection moulded onto them and were trying to sell it as the latest technology. The previous generation had veneer glued to an aluminium casting. I know which one I am choosing…
“Total output stands at 876 horsepower on the S trim and 810 horsepower on standard models”
Remember the “good old days” when Rolls Royce and Bentley used to report their horsepower numbers as “Adequate” for regular models and “Adequte+30%” for turbo models?
I’m so tired of huge fender flares on the standard version of vehicles, they were cool on the old Group 4 cars because it was the only legal way to legally widen the track or add balloon tires to compacts, but now they’re getting baked into the bog-standard version of family and luxury cars from the go, and it’s getting tedious.
In this case those 275 mm wide tires may call for it.
Unfortunately, that seems to be the same size as featured in the not-particularly-flared Cayenne, so Bentley’s design team doesn’t get much grace from me on that account.
Fair. I’m not a big fan of the trend in general. It doesn’t bother me as much on aggressive/fast vehicles.
Yeah, I don’t hate the wide hips on sports cars, they tend to be more cohesive and flow naturally into the design, resulting in the look of a car with wide hips. Cars like the 1974 Countach Periscopio and Lotus Evora come to mind. I think current designers of executive cars are huffing too much Nostalgiamax and keep forgetting that most 80s cult classics are just 70s cars with box flares slapped on, and that all of the actual “radical new” 80s designs had smooth sides, as devoid of kinks and curves on the Z-plane as possible and as straight as they could be fore-aft.
Look at contemporary from-the-ground-up sports car designs like the first-gen Fiero, the second-gen RX-7 and the Ferrari F40, you could hold a straightedge from the front fender to the rear and not see a single dot of light coming through. Same applies for the base models of all the DTM legends, a non-M e30 or a non-Cosworth 190E had nothing more than a little lip around the fender opening.
Now, I understand that they’re selling to a nostalgic audience, the average Bentley buyer was young in the 80s and thinks box flares are cool regardless of their purpose, but I don’t like it. It’s cynical.
I’m disappointed how many visible hard points it shares with its Porsche Cayenne EV sibling, which seems to include the core body shell (decorative surfaces like the rear quarter panel are different, but it’s quite close to the Cayenne EV). The interior also looks like that of the Cayenne EV and is as unremarkable as the exterior.
Bentley had the chance to do something daring and interesting in this space, and chose instead to play it safely, much as it did with the Bentayga a decade ago. Or perhaps there was a corporate edict from somewhere within the Porsche-Bentley subgroup or the broader Volkswagen Group to make these cars as close as possible, since the Bentley is basically a bunch of additional profit trading on the name and a few unique aspects.
I’m not impressed. I’m also not the target buyer for this kind of car.
I think without the W12, Bentley has almost nothing left to mechanically distinguish itself, and as an EV platform, there’s no way they could/would use a different architecture than the Porsches they’ve been sharing a chassis with for decades. Especially with VW on the back foot, I’m afraid this milquetoast execution of the big EV was inevitable.
I guess my point is that Bentley could–and should–have engineered a different body. You can see that all of the hard points are exactly the same between these two cars, because the core body is the same. They just have superficial skin differentiations and different bolt-on parts (front and rear clips). The end result is that this doesn’t look very exciting for your quarter-of-a-million dollars.
Whereas even when the Phaeton and the Continental GT shared platforms.
But yes, it’s kind of a repeat of the Bentayga and the (gen 3) Touareg. Bentley is a shell of its former self. Really, the mechanical differentiator wasn’t even the W12; it was the 6.75-liter L-series V8 that was inherited from the Rolls-Royce Motors days and that dated back to the 60s. The cars that it powered…the Arnage, the Brooklands, the Azure, the Mulsanne, were also differentiated in that they were mostly wholly Bentley efforts. Okay, the Mulsanne had an electrical architecture out of a D4 Audi A8, but it executed it well.
I fully agree there’s far too much Cayenne in all of this.
It also has negative ramifications on the styling. Clearly the styling was supposed to be more angular like the EXP 15 concept, but the Cayenne underpinnings mean they’ve had to somehow blend softer curves into the design.
You end up with something a bit disjointed.
This looks like a Chinese knock off of a Bentley to me.
Obligatory:
https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=turkle
The depreciation curve on this is going to be something to behold.
What an absolutely absurd statement
How can “premier league” be a pejorative?
A gentleman’s game played by hooligans
As opposed to Rugby
Can’t believe Bentley cheaped out on the rear lights. Genesis gives you TWO light strips per taillight, not just one ????
But I do genuinely like it. I wish the headlights were just a little bit bigger, but that’s nitpicky. It has the clean presence I expect in a proper luxury vehicle. And while it does have the giant infotainment, it’s a pretty clean dash overall.
Oof, that face… more like Dork-al!
The BMW’ish cut around the headlights seems to be just some cute idea, and it not really fitting with the design of the front.
But looks better generally than both the Hongqi and the Rolls…
A bit busy on the exterior design. Nose is a mess, looks like they were going for a British bulldawg thing, like the rear, interior is fine notwithstanding the pc gamer LED visual mess. I’m not their market so my opine doesn’t matter for much.
That’s actually pretty good. Bentley gets the assignment.
They’re not going to win on power, and not on range. So instead they made an EV that looks like a Bentley without bad gimmicks. It’ll never be for me, but it will probably gel with Bentley owners.
I love the grille, it’s a sweet callback to the 80s Turbo R (among others).
Does anyone else see some Bentley Dominator design cues in there? Specifically the rear end negative space looks a lot like the chrome trim lining the Dominator had. Ditto on the headlight and grill shapes with the way the front bumper has a subtle chin shape to it.
Hey electrical nerds! What’s an anachronistic way they could express the 113kwh similar to how they did the 6 3/4 liters (instead of 6.75) for…British reasons.
British Thermal Units. Just multiply the value of kWh by 3414. So this 113kWh battery becomes a 386 3/4 kBTU battery.
Beat me by 2 seconds
Also bonus points for a retro “Powered by Intel” badge just below the 386
Add Turbo button.
Thanks. It’s so British I hate it.
Actually looks a bit like a TX1 also, with the tall blocky body with those “classic” (but now unnecessary) lines and a signature grille! 😀
Would that be how they express the amount of coal loaded into a steam locomotive’s tender?
I’d say in short tonnes which would make 113 kWh out to 13 3/4 mTonne
Now we’re thinking with coal, I’m a big supporter of the Bentley 13 3/4 mTonne (mT? st?)
According to the internets a typical (non elite) human can exert about 0.1hp for an extended period. Which would translate to this Bentley motor capable of an output of 8760 servant labors.
The descriptor of “labors” is used instead of “power” since the use of the latter might give them *ideas*.
If you want to be British, then you could do something with 386k BTU or just stay with Watts, since those are already british
Are you sure this isn’t a Genesis? It has a winged badge and everything…
I would like to hear that sound system though.
It’s not good looking, it’s a bastardized old Bentley front grafted onto a Cayenne EV with some modern Bentley hips and then ends with a bustleback.
Fully agree. It makes a Bentayga look cohesive and restrained.
That’s exactly what it is, the greenhouse is exactly the same on both, and it looks like the doors are probably the same structurally, aside from the exterior skin. It isn’t a rebadge, sure, because most of the sheet metal is different aside from the roof and pillars, but they didn’t really do a complete job of visually hiding the kinship.
This is almost as bad as when GM decided to share the Buick Enclave’s c-pillar/quarter panel treatment with the entry level Traverse
Yeah, this looks absurdly awful. I looked at the photo and went “wait, that’s what it looks like?!” its like a Russian/Chinese knockoff vehicle hybrid. It’s terrible looking.
It looks like they took a Cayenne and gave it the Subaru Impreza Casa Blanca treatment. Like, anyone with eyes can tell it’s still a Cayenne (Impreza) under there, it’s just ‘sophisticated’ now, with a giant, old-fashioned schnoz that doesn’t match the greenhouse at all, and a surprisingly weird tail treatment.
Wood? What is it, 1985? Get rid of that junk and give me a passenger screen I can play games on. If anyone can afford a $150/yr subscription, it’s a Bentley owner. Mistakes like this are why VAG keeps losing money.
I found BMW’s alt account
Said no one, ever. 😛
Interior says new Lincoln to me.
The grill and angry eyes treatment of the DRLs don’t play well to me
If (read: when) VW slaps a corporate Audi face onto this car instead it might look a bit better.