Dive Brief:
Luxury automaker Bentley Motors reported its seventh consecutive year of profitability in its 2025 financial results. However, the company’s performance was stymied by what it described as “a number of external and nonrecurring factors” largely related to scrapped EV projects.
However, the first fully electric Bentley remains on track for deliveries in early 2027, CEO Frank-Steffen Walliser confirmed in a Q&A session with media. But the development of up to four subsequent luxury EVs built on the “SSP-61” version of the VW Group’s Scalable Systems Platform have been abandoned.
Bentley’s next-generation cars will be plug-in hybrids, Walliser confirmed, underscoring that the brand will have “a balanced portfolio.”
Dive Insight:
As various other luxury brands have pulled the plug on electric vehicle projects for the near term, Bentley Motors CEO Frank-Steffen Walliser emphasized that its own near-term EV is still on, and due for first deliveries next year, though it could be the brand’s only one for years.
Although multiple Bentley EVs were previously in the pipeline for later in the decade, no other electric models are due to arrive before 2030, Walliser confirmed.
“With the cancellation of the SSP-61, we had to renew and rethink and recalculate our complete product line and all future offers,” said Walliser, adding that its product plan looks “completely different” than it did two years ago.
The discontinuation of the SSP-61 EV platform wasn’t entirely Bentley’s doing, but part of a “product strategy realignment” at Porsche that postponed development of the platform to the 2030s. That resulted in an impairment loss and outstanding obligations of 2 billion euros ($2.3 billion)—shared between Porsche and VW Group’s Progressive brand group that includes Bentley, Audi, Lamborghini and Ducati.
Bentley reported an operating profit of 216 million euros in 2025 on a margin of 8.3%. It was a 42% decline from 2024. Overall sales were down about 5% in 2025, due partly to market contraction in China, “This outcome was significantly affected by expenses related to the decision of the Volkswagen Group to discontinue a D-segment platform, as well additional pressure from U.S. tariff impacts and detrimental F/X impacts,” summed the company in an accompanying press release.
Despite a series of headwinds, the brand emphasized that sales of Mulliner versions and higher-margin vehicles increased year-over-year, resulting in a year-over-year drop in revenue of just 1% to 2.6 billion euros.
In the wake of the EV expenses and shifting market, Bentley used the opportunity to “completely clean up our balance sheet,” said Board Member for Finance and IT Axel Dewitz.
That included an “organisational adjustment potentially affecting 275 positions”—which, Walliser confirmed, affects employment for about 150 of its 4,600 employees. “We are working hard to ensure that our organization within Bentley is structured for the future and not for the past,” he said.
Demand remained the strongest for Bentley’s Speed and Mulliner versions in 2025, which helped drive the company’s financials in a positive direction. And while sales were technically down, Bentley achieved a higher value per car, noted Dewitz.
Bentley revenues had already slumped 10% in 2024, on an even steeper decrease in sales, as it retired its 12-cylinder engine models, replacing them with a high-performance hybrid V-8 powertrain. In 2025 Bentley introduced a fourth-generation Continental GT and high-performance Flying Spur, both with a new plug-in hybrid V-8 powertrain.
The British brand confirmed that it’s nearly finished transforming the oldest building at its Pyms Lane factory for electric vehicle assembly. The carbon-neutral facility had been part of the plan since Bentley pivoted to embrace EVs and sustainability in 2020. In 2022, it laid out a $3.4 billion investment as part of its “Beyond100” strategy to become a fully electric luxury brand by 2030.
As part of the Beyond100 strategy, Bentley planned to offer only EVs and plug-in hybrids from 2026 onward, with a new EV arriving each year starting in 2025. But in November 2024, Bentley backtracked on its EV goals and renamed it the Beyond100+ strategy to become a fully electric brand instead by 2035. Then in November 2025 it sidelined the plan again, promising to extend internal combustion models and hybrid versions until at least 2035.
That said, the abandonment of some of the VW Group’s most advanced EVs doesn’t mean Bentley is backing away from technology and progress. A new generation of Bentley customers are asking for a connected car, underscored Walliser to WardsAuto, and self-driving capabilities are on the brand’s roadmap. Further, Bentley’s EV — the one that’s still on — will be able to add 100 miles of range in about seven minutes, according to the CEO.
“We’re looking to create a segment and the type of car that only Bentley can do,” he said.
