Bentley has built its first electric car in 107 years. It's called the Torcal, it costs from £173,300 (roughly $230,000), and it seats the brand's future somewhere between the electric Porsche Cayenne and the bigger Bentayga as the new entry point into the marque. We caught an early drive on California's Monterey Peninsula ahead of the global reveal.
The name borrows from El Torcal de Antequera, a twisted limestone terrain in Andalusia, and the car itself is a mid-sized SUV sharing its platform with the electric Cayenne. It's lower and sleeker than the Bentayga, with frameless windows, self-closing doors and a striking upright illuminated diamond grille that nods to the Continental T. Design boss Robin Page calls the surfacing a return to the straighter lines of 1990s and 2000s Bentleys rather than the curvier look of recent years.
Inside, a curved central display flows down to a knurled diamond-patterned dial — the 'Curation Engine' — that houses the starter button and switches between Bentley, Sport, Comfort and Refresh modes. Twist it and the cabin follows: lighting, graphics, climate, massage and sound all shift together. Notably, there's no passenger screen. Bentley sees that as a deliberate stance on luxury: a blend of tech and traditional materials instead. The dashboard carries leather, aluminium, an ombré veneer built from roughly a thousand compressed wood layers, and merino wool from Somerset's Fox Brothers, its first use in a production car.
The party trick is the noise. This engineless SUV emits a convincing V8 burble, modelled on the Continental R's famous unit — recorded by drummers playing the V8 firing order, imperfections included. The sound tracks torque demand rather than speed, rising under acceleration. It sounds odd on paper, but in the metal it gives the electric car a character most EVs lack.
Performance figures are strong, even if Bentley's team downplays them. With 875bhp, the Torcal is the most powerful and quickest Bentley ever: 0-62mph in 2.8 seconds. Range is 375 miles, and 400kW charging takes the battery from 10 to 80 per cent in under 20 minutes — enough, the company suggests, to drive Paris to Saint-Tropez without stopping. On the road it rides with subtle body movement rather than dead-flat stiffness, tuned to feel as comfortable as a Flying Spur on the motorway and as sharp as a GT on back roads.
Order books are open, and the Torcal forms a core part of Bentley's push for new customers under CEO Dr Frank-Steffen Walliser, who arrived from Porsche in 2024. For anyone who loves the idea of a luxury grand tourer that happens to be electric — and who wants their luxury to sound like a big-cube V8 rather than a sci-fi whoosh — this is one of the most interesting new cars of the year. Full review via Elite Traveler.
