Five electric Bentleys in five years

Bentley Motors has announced an ambitious programme to be known as the Five-in-Five plan, which commits the marque to launching a new electric model each year, from 2025. Even more significant for the firm’s future, Bentley also revealed a £2.5 billion sustainable investment to realise this strategy, and confirmed that from 2025, the first Bentley electric vehicle will be designed, developed and produced at its headquarters in Crewe, England.

The announcement is a major boost to the team at Crewe, the region and the UK as a sustainable base for high-value manufacturing. The investment will also allow a fundamental reinvention of the Crewe manufacturing infrastructure and will help secure Bentley’s future at Crewe for the next generation of products – and employees. Among the latest initiatives will be an extension of on-site energy production at Crewe, aiming to increase the number of solar panels from 30,000 to 40,000 in the next two years. In addition, Bentley is investigating using sustainable biofuel in fleet cars, including Bentley’s Heritage Collection.

On Bentley’s model range, the luxury marque will release the Flying Spur PHEV in 2022, as well as five additional derivatives, added to the current Bentayga PHEV to meet the diverse needs of Bentley’s customers. It is anticipated that more than 20 per cent of sales this year will come from Bentley’s hybrid cars – a figure that seems likely to rise ever more steeply, year on year.

The current set-up is hardly old-fashioned and is already turning out hybrid vehicles