New Bentley hybrid powertrain to outmuscle W12

Bentley will shed more details on a new “high performance” hybrid drivetrain in the coming weeks that will offer greater outputs than its outgoing 6.0-litre twin-turbo W12 engine, which is being put to pasture at the end of April.

As the British luxury car-maker continues its ‘Bentley 100’ strategy – whereby all new models will be electrified in some capacity (pure EV or hybrid) before the end of the decade – the much-anticipated new hybrid is expected to be confirmed for the Bentley Continental, offered alongside an existing V8.

Speaking with carsales on a quick Australian visit this week, Bentley global chief communications officer Wayne Bruce confirmed the hybrid would surpass the venerable W12 for performance.

“We have a new high-performance hybrid drivetrain coming in the not-too-distant future,” he said.

“The high performance that’s coming will have more combined power than the W12, but we’ll tell you more about that in the coming months.”

The W12 will be formally retired at the end of April after more than 20 years in production, over which time it has been installed in more than 100,000 Bentley vehicles.

Bentley will commemorate the mighty engine with a special runout globally, although it’s bad news for interested Aussies as the entire allocation has already been snapped up.

“I’m afraid that if you want a W12 you may be too late. Certainly, you might find an unallocated car, but if you want to place a specific order then there’s none left. That’s to say all the build slots are gone,” said Bruce.

“We’ve announced a global runout for the Edition 12, but they’ve all gone. Some of those are coming to Australia. There will be a handful and they will have unique Edition 12 badging, the firing sequence of the 12-cylinder on the passenger veneer, some unique stitch and colour combinations. And they’re all spoken for.”

Uptake of Bentley’s hybrid models has been slower in Australia than the rest of the world, with barely one in 10 local sales in 2023 utilising the technology.

However, Bruce remains buoyant about the potential for hybrid and believes Bentley’s electrification strategy won’t alienate traditional owners.

“I think demand for hybrids naturally will increase. Awareness of what plug-in hybrids can do is really increasing, so we expect the number to organically grow,” he said.

The forthcoming high-performance hybrid is merely a preview of what’s to come from Bentley, with the car-maker promising a battery-electric model in 2026 that will offer double the outputs of its classic W12.

That means Bentley’s upcoming EVs should pack at least of 727kW of power, based on the 485kW output of the current Continental GT Speed, which would set a new record for a production car, while peak torque is almost certain to top 1000Nm – as with the 484kW/950Nm Mercedes-AMG EQS 53 electric limousine (560kW/1020Nm with the AMG Dynamic Plus Package).

“What is certain is that the first electric car is coming in 2026, it would be too early to speculate on the life of the current cars,” Bruce said.

“Bentley is small, we don’t have the scale of a Porsche and we can’t afford to gamble.

“At some point the pure ICE cars will go, before the end of the decade.

“But we believe that given the acceptance already of PHEV technology, these engines could go into the next decade alongside a different-bodied fully-electric offering.

“What we would not do in the next generation of Bentley is offer a choice of drivetrains. They will be fully electric. We can’t and wouldn’t want to do both.”

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