Bentley heads towards an electric future with record sales

Britain’s Bentley is booming. And its ebullient, up-beat boss Adrian Hallmark says this is just the start as the car-maker based at Crewe in Cheshire undergoes a massive transformation on its road from luxuriously sporty cars — with powerful but gas-guzzling petrol engines — to full zero-emissions electrification.

Bentley recently celebrated record results, both in sales and more importantly profits, on its ambitious road to full electrification despite what Hallmark freely admits has been a ‘roller-coaster’ year.

Driving that boom has been customers spending more on customising higher value bespoke and personalised luxury models, carrying a bigger profit margin.

Success story: The top seller in 2022 was Bentley’s Bentayga clocking up 42% of sales

The record revenues raised — the highest in the company’s 104-year history — are being re-invested in-house to create new factory premises in Crewe that are fit not only for the switch to electrification, but also to allow Bentley to produce even more of the lucrative personalised cars.

Chairman and chief executive Hallmark, who trained as an engineer and metallurgist and is a keen cyclist, may be the architect of the transformation but he’s clear it’s the 4,000-strong workforce at the Crewe factory who are the heroes of this revolution, with many being re-trained for the switch.

The figures alone are impressive. Bentley’s operating profits of €708million (£622million) for 2022 marked an increase of €319million (£280million) on 2021, and are up nearly €1billion (£880million) on the €288million (£253million) losses of pre-pandemic 2018.

But it was customer spending on lucrative extras, more than extra sales, which helped overall revenues jump 19 per cent year-on-year as turnover hit €3.38billion (£2.97billion).

That profits boost came as Bentley also celebrated record sales in 2022 of 15,174 cars — the first time it has sold more than 15,000 in a year.

It also marked a ‘significant shift’ in buying patterns as well-heeled customers chose costlier personalised options and ‘extras’, and invested more in exclusive limited editions and coachbuilt ‘collectibles’ — such as the Bacalar — costing around £2 million each, says Hallmark.

Indeed, the average price of a Bentley sold has soared from €165,000 (£145,000) in 2018 to €220,00 (£193,000) in 2022 driven by increased demand for personalisation, he adds.

But the best year for sales and financial performance also came in the face of unprecedented turbulence.

Those little extras – but at a price 

Most popular ‘extras’ chosen by Bentley customers to bump up the standard list price are…

Rotating Display: £4,965

At the press of a button, the James Bond-style rotating display gives customers a choice of three dashboard faces: a 12.3 in Infotainment touch screen, classic analogue dials, or elegant veneer.

Airline Seat: £8,390

Relax in business class seats with the world-first auto climate sensing and advanced postural adjustment system. It applies 177 individual pressure changes across six fully independent posture pressure zones.

Hand cross stitching: £2,570

This hand-crafted work with a needle and thread involves putting a single thread between the twinning stitches throughout the cabin. It takes someone nearly a week of work — but produces an additional level of bespoke hand craftsmanship.

‘We faced so many challenges last year. Ten, to be precise. At least four of them could have shut the business down for months,’ says Hallmark. 

It was a testament to Bentley’s resilience, crisis planning, cost cutting, restructuring, its ‘value over volume’ strategy — and its workforce — that the firm not only survived but prospered in the face of challenges, which included parts shortages caused by the war in Ukraine, economic uncertainty, rampant inflation, and Covid, he says.

The strong performance also means Bentley, part of the giant Volkswagen Group, can self-fund its own investment, including €3billion (£2.64billion) transforming its Crewe factory for electrification and expansion of its lucrative bespoke Mulliner arm. It’s also a vote of confidence in Britain.

‘We want to finance our own future and be self-sufficient,’ Hallmark stressed.

Five new pure electric car launches over five years start from 2026 as part of this ‘Beyond100’ strategy.

Bentley aims to electrify its entire range and achieve carbon neutral status by 2030 as it says goodbye to the gas-guzzling 12-cylinder petrol engine. ‘We are fully committed to going fully electric’, says Hallmark.

The top seller in 2022 was Bentley’s Bentayga SUV clocking up 42 per cent of sales, with the Continental GT and Convertible accounting for a third). The flagship Flying Spur four-door grand-tourer achieved 28 per cent of sales, boosted by a hybrid version.

Eleven of Bentley’s heritage cars — including the Speed Six and Team Blower — will be appearing and racing at the Goodwood Members’ Meeting (goodwood.com) next weekend (April 15 and 16).

Rush to buy an EV helps spark a rise in new registrations 

Good news in the British car market this week as figures showed new registrations grew in March by 18.2 per cent year on year — the eighth consecutive month of rises.

A total of 287,825 new vehicles left showrooms last month, up from 243,479 in March last year.

Sign here: Car sales are on the increase

And sales of pure electric cars hit a record monthly high of 46,626, representing growth of 18.6 per cent, the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) revealed.

This was boosted by a new shipment of Teslas arriving in the UK in March, propelling the Model Y SUV, priced from £44,490, to the top of the sales charts with 8,123 registrations.

However, the data also reveals that sales to large fleets, which includes big organisations such as government agencies and rental companies, were responsible for much of the increase, as sales in these sectors soared by almost 41 per cent.

By contrast, sales to private buyers, or general cash-strapped consumers hit by the cost-of-living crisis, were up by only 1.4 per cent compared to 12 months ago.

Best-sellers in March were Tesla’s Model Y followed by the Sunderland-built Nissan Juke and Nissan Qashqai, Kia Sportage, Hyundai Tucson, Ford Puma, Vauxhall Corsa, the Mini, Toyota Yaris Cross and Ford Fiesta.

For the first three months of the year so far, top-seller was the Nissan Qashqai followed by the Nissan Juke, Vauxhall Corsa, Tesla Model Y and Kia Sportage.

Mike Hawes, SMMT chief executive, said: ‘March’s new plate month usually sets the tone for the year so this performance will give the industry and consumers greater confidence.’

Electrified ‘green’ vehicles accounted for nearly half (46 per cent) of sales, a rise of 16 per cent year on year.

Ginny Buckley, founder and CEO of electric car website Electrifying.com, said: ‘It’s reassuring to see the car market is growing steadily. However, private buyers are still reluctant to switch to electric cars, which is something the industry needs to take seriously.

‘We can see from the stats that petrol superminis are increasing in popularity, while at the same time there’s a significant lack of smaller electric cars on the market.

‘That’s why it’s now up to car makers to launch smaller, less expensive models we desperately need to help drive uptake.

‘Supporting infrastructure with more charging points is key for this to happen.’

Scared of spiders? Not this one, surely! 

Car design guru Gordon Murray — who, during his stellar career, created the legendary McLaren F1 supercar and a host of F1 racing cars — has just unveiled his latest creation, an open-top T.33 Spider which promises to be as practical as it is high performance.

The car is powered by a mighty 617 horse-power, 3.9-litre naturally aspirated Cosworth GMA.2 V12 engine, with two removable roof panels and a deployable rear window.

Billed as ‘a truly usable supercar’, the carbon composite roof panels can be stowed in the 115-litre front luggage compartment, with the twin side lockers providing an additional 180 litres of storage space.

The open-top T.33 Spider promises to be as practical as it is high performance

It will be hand-built, alongside its hard-top sibling, T.33, at Gordon Murray Automotive’s new bespoke global headquarters and technology campus at Windlesham, Surrey.

Professor Murray said: ‘When drawing a car, I imagine what it’s going to feel like to sit in, and how it will feel to drive. So from the first sketch I knew that, with its open cockpit and the incredible Cosworth GMA.2 V12 engine right behind you, the T.33 Spider would deliver a truly involving driving experience that’s quite unlike anything else.’

Yet despite it being a mid-engined supercar, he insisted: ‘I wouldn’t accept any compromise on usability. This is why the T.33 Spider is unique in the supercar sector in delivering both on-board roof storage and a 295-litre luggage capacity.’

The Spider is being limited to just 100 models, of which around half are already understood to have been sold, and will go into production in 2025.

Priced are expected to start from around £1.9million.

Better start saving…

This post first appeared on Dailymail.co.uk