Luxury Urban
November 17, 2025
Jay RameyCrewe's first EV will be a VW Group team effort, with Porsche and Audi's PPE platform slated to underpin the plusher Bentley model.
Bentley’s first EV is slated for a 2026 debut, and the Anglo-Germanic automaker is expected to borrow heavily from its corporate stablemates to give the Bentayga a smaller electric sibling.
Known (for now) as the Luxury Urban SUV, the model will use the Audi and Porsche-derived Premium Platform Electric (PPE) architecture with the upcoming Porsche Cayenne Electric expected to be a good preview of what we could see in Crewe’s version, which is already in pre-series production.
If the Cayenne Electric is any indication, a battery with a capacity of 108 kWh (usable) is a good bet, with the structural pack featuring double-sided cooling along with a low center of gravity. The Bentley model is expected to use a dual-motor setup, skipping a single-motor version that could offer more range.
The top-shelf variants on the PPE platform have been promising 805 hp, with almost 1,000 on tap for launches. Bentley has been understandably tight-lipped about its own numbers, but the Cayenne Electric’s base output of 400 hp is perhaps not spicy enough for Crewe’s version.
This should still give it a range of over 350 miles in the rosier European cycle, 0-to-60 launches in under 3.0 seconds might be possible, even though it will still be weighed down by acres of leather inside.
There is one thing that Bentley is unusually specific about: The EV will able to gain 100 miles of range in under 7 minutes, with the PPE platform featuring an 800-volt architecture with 400-kW charging rates. (Which is good because Bentley owners are probably the impatient type).
If there is one area in which the Bentley model will likely err on the side of modesty rather than extravagance, it’s exterior size. The upcoming EV, which has already been seen in spy photos, is remarkably close in size to its Porsche sibling. This suggests an overall length of under 16.4 feet, likely landing half a foot inside the Bentayga’s footprint.
A sub-Bentayga model with a heavier focus on performance has been in the cards for some time, though we’ll only be seeing it next year due to delays in the development of the PPE platform earlier this decade linked to issues at VW’s Cariad software unit. That might actually end up working well with Bentley’s overall EV timeline. The brand is already having second thoughts about its plans to go EV-only by 2035.
“We are evolving our product cadence to reflect the realities of a changing world and a dynamic marketplace,” said Dr. Frank-Steffen Walliser, Chairman and CEO of Bentley Motors. “By extending [sic] introducing new internal combustion engined models, and offering hybrid powertrains until at least 2035, we are ensuring that every Bentley customer can continue to experience the full breadth of our performance and craftsmanship.”
It certainly sounds like Bentley’s customer base, which isn’t as limited to Europe as it was even 30 years ago, would like to keep buying internal combustion models in their respective markets.
Bentley’s newfound flexibility regarding the 2035 timeline is perhaps no surprise given the vastly different rates of EV adoption in regions like the Middle East, which is far more important today than it used to be.
Speaking of buyers, they’ll need to start lining up (with a suitcase of cash) in the second half of 2026, with the Bentley EV SUV expected to land for the 2027 model year.
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