Bentley will ditch internal combustion engines by 2030

Enlarge / For its centenary in 2019 the company built the EXP 100 GT concept car to think through ideas for an all-electric Bentley. (credit: Bentley)

Time is starting to run out for vehicles powered purely by internal combustion engines, and the auto industry knows it. This week Bentley, that bastion of British luxury, became the latest OEM to set a date for that happening-the year 2030. As the company moves into its second century, it has revealed a new plan called "Beyond 100" that it says will "reinvent every aspect of its business to become an end-to-end carbon neutral organization.

Bentley already introduced a plug-in hybrid EV version of the Bentayga SUV and next year it plans to add another pair of PHEVs to its roster-presumably the Continental GT coupe and Flying Spur sedan. In 2025, the company plans to introduce a battery electric vehicle; Bentley CEO Adrian Hallmark told Autoweek that "you've got to pick a point in time where battery power density, especially for bigger cars, is the liberator for us. We've always said that the mid-2020s is the time when you can expect to see 120-plus kilowatt-hour batteries coming through the supply chain."

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