Bentley has put a name on its first fully electric car: Torcal. The company says the battery-powered SUV will be shown in full on 23 September 2026, giving buyers, dealers, and rivals a date to attach to a project Bentley has been promising for years.
The useful information is still limited, because of course it is. Bentley has said the Torcal will be a five-meter-long SUV with a driving range of more than 300 miles. It has not announced pricing, battery capacity, motor output, charging speed, market launch timing, or production volumes.
The name had already surfaced in trademark filings in Europe and the UK, according to WIRED. Those filings covered Torcal and Barnato for uses including vehicles, electric cars, charging cables, and charging stations. Barnato referred to Woolf Barnato, the Bentley driver and financier associated with the brand’s 1920s racing history. Bentley chose Torcal instead.
The company’s naming logic is on-brand in the slightly over-engineered way luxury carmakers enjoy. Torcal refers to El Torcal de Antequera, a limestone formation in Andalusia, Spain. The word also traces back to the Latin “torquere,” meaning to twist, the root of torque. That is a tidy linguistic handbrake turn for an EV, where torque delivery is one of the few technical facts customers can feel without reading a brochure.
What Bentley has shown so far
WIRED reported seeing the Torcal at a private preview near Bentley’s UK headquarters. The publication said the SUV clearly relates to the Bentayga, though it is slightly smaller. The shape keeps Bentley cues including a long hood, upright front end, and pronounced rear arches.
The rear design moves away from the Bentayga’s oval lighting toward a cleaner horizontal treatment, based on Bentley’s teaser image and WIRED’s account. The roofline drops toward the back, a common EV move used to reduce drag and help range. At the front, Bentley has replaced the usual radiator-focused grille with a solid illuminated crystal treatment, with the design said to draw from the Continental T.
Inside, WIRED said the Torcal combines physical controls for major functions with OLED displays. The central screen curves downward, and Bentley has not followed some other luxury manufacturers by adding a dedicated passenger display. WIRED said it was told that such a screen will not be offered as an option.
The market Bentley is entering
Bentley chairman and chief executive Frank-Steffen Walliser called the Torcal “the most considered car” in the company’s history, according to WIRED. The timing makes that more than launch-event padding. Several high-end EV efforts are already running into buyers who appear less excited about expensive electric statements than automakers expected.
WIRED reported that Lamborghini has shelved its Lanzador electric GT, with chief executive Stephan Winkelmann saying demand among Lamborghini buyers was “going almost to zero, if not to zero.” Ferrari’s first EV, the Luce, was followed by a sharp fall in market value after its reveal, and Ferrari has pushed a second electric model to 2028, according to WIRED.
Other luxury EV data points are ugly. WIRED said Mercedes-Benz sold 1,450 electric G-Wagens in Europe through April 2025, compared with 9,700 combustion models. Audi ended the Q8 E-tron after closing its Brussels plant, citing a “global decline in customer orders in the electric luxury class segment.” Porsche, Bentley’s Volkswagen Group sibling, reported a 93 percent drop in 2025 group operating profit to €413 million, with a €3.9 billion writedown tied to its EV strategy reversal, according to WIRED.
Bentley is not going all-in on EVs yet. The company reported €216 million in operating profit on €2.6 billion in revenue in March, according to WIRED, but that profit was down 42 percent year on year. Bentley has pushed its all-electric target from 2030 to 2035 under its Beyond100 Plus plan and intends to keep selling combustion and plug-in hybrid models alongside the Torcal. A second full-electric Bentley is not expected before 2030.
Walliser told WIRED that buyers who once wanted EVs to look visibly futuristic now want cars that feel more familiar. That is the bet behind the Torcal: make Bentley’s first EV look and feel like a Bentley, while hoping the luxury EV market stops punishing almost everyone trying the same trick.
This story draws on original reporting from WIRED.
