British Luxury Car Manufacturer Bentley Ready To Launch An Electric Vehicle Variant Every Year

Bentley is getting serious about getting into the electric car business. (photo: pixabay)

JAKARTA – Luxury carmaker Bentley unveiled plans on Tuesday, March 15 to build a new electric model every year, for five years from 2025. This comes after its annual profit skyrocketed.

The British automaker has also received support from its parent company, Volkswagen, to expand its electric vehicle offerings.

Crewe, UK-based Bentley posted a profit of 389 million euros (Rp 4.5 trillion) for 2021, compared with a profit of 20 million euros (Rp 314 billion) the previous year. The surge in profits was influenced by their production soaring by 31% to 14,659 cars due to strong demand for new hybrid models.

Automakers around the world are now redoubling efforts to switch to electric models as demand for more environmentally friendly engines continues to grow. Bentley's parent Volkswagen, which is now Europe's largest automaker, is also stepping up investment in electric infrastructure to counter Tesla.

Bentley itself targets to be end-to-end carbon neutral by 2030, having invested 3 billion euros (Rp 47.1 trillion) in its Crewe plant over 10 years to help with this transition.

"The growing demand for our hybridized model, supported by (3 billion euros) of continued investment in our Crewe plant, will ensure we remain the benchmark manufacturer in sustainable luxury mobility," said Jan-Henrik Lafrentz, board member for Finance and IT, at Bentley as quoted by Reuters.

For the luxury car market with electric power, Bentley is quite advanced. Not many competitors have started to seriously enter this market.