Bentley's Torcal stops at 888 hp because more feels uncomfortable
A 1,350 Nm Bentley with no anti-roll bars enters Crewe production in 2027
Bentley revealed the Torcal in London on 23 September, a five-metre electric SUV that becomes the company's fourth model line and its first car without a combustion engine. It is also the most powerful Bentley ever sold, and the first to run a fully active suspension with no anti-roll bars at all. Production starts at Crewe in early 2027.
The Torcal S makes 888 hp, 106 hp more than the Continental GT Speed
The Torcal launches in two versions. The core car produces 821 hp and 1,194 Nm, reaches 100 km/h in 3.4 seconds and runs to 250 km/h. The S raises that to 888 hp and 1,350 Nm with launch control engaged, cutting the sprint to 2.9 seconds and lifting the top speed to 260 km/h. Both figures come from a pair of permanent-magnet motors, the rear one with a locking differential. Until now the most powerful Bentley was the 782 hp Continental GT Speed hybrid, and the highest torque figure in the company's history was 1,000 Nm.
Porsche's Cayenne Turbo Electric makes 1,156 hp on the same architecture
Bentley's press release runs to more than 2,000 words and never mentions Porsche. The Torcal sits on the Premium Platform Electric that Bentley shares with its Stuttgart sister brand, where the same 800-volt hardware set produces 1,156 hp in the Cayenne Turbo Electric. Bentley stopped 268 hp short and said why: the team responsible knew that most customers find acceleration more extreme than this uncomfortable. Crewe designed, engineered and will build the car, but the ceiling it declined to reach was set in Germany.
Active dampers replace the anti-roll bars, and five degrees of rear steer shrink the turning circle to 11.1 m
The chassis is the genuine engineering news. Each of the two-valve dampers can be raised or lowered independently and instantly, generating anti-roll torque on demand, which let the engineers delete the anti-roll bars entirely rather than accept their usual compromise between body control and ride. All-wheel steering is standard, turning the rear wheels through up to five degrees and pulling the turning circle of a five-metre SUV down to 11.1 metres. Bentley claims the result rides like a Flying Spur and handles like a Continental GT Speed.
113 kWh, 600 km of range and 161 km added in seven minutes
The battery holds 113 kWh across 192 lithium-ion pouch cells wired in series at 800 volts nominal, and carries a ten-year, 100,000-mile warranty. Range is up to 600 km on the WLTP cycle, which leaves the Torcal just behind the Rolls-Royce Spectre Series II and its 628 km. On a 400 kW charger Bentley quotes 161 km of range in seven minutes. Its own release is less settled on the full stop: the summary bullets claim 10 to 80 percent in 16 minutes, while the body text a few paragraphs later says just under 20 minutes.
Bentley published no prices, and the boot holds 460 litres
Bentley released no pricing with the reveal. Auto Express reports a UK list price of £173,330, and no euro figures have followed for Germany, Belgium or the Netherlands. Practicality is respectable rather than commanding for the size: 460 litres behind the rear seats, another 90 litres under the bonnet, and a three-seat rear bench that power-folds, a first for the brand. Inside sit the world's first 100 percent Merino wool automotive fabric, a new Ombré Walnut veneer pressed from up to 1,000 layers of offcuts, and a driving soundtrack played on drums, viola and bass guitar rather than synthesised from a V8 recording.
AutoNext Take
Every luxury EV of the past five years has been sold on the number it can reach. Bentley is selling this one partly on the number it stopped at, and it put the reasoning in the press release rather than leaving it to be discovered. That is a coherent position for a company whose cars have always been measured in effortlessness instead of lap times, and 888 hp is not abstinence by any reading. Nobody else building on this architecture has published a reason for leaving performance unused.
Bentley's own history is the argument against it. The Bentayga, the Continental GT and the Flying Spur each launched in core and S form and each ended up with a Speed above them, and 268 hp of unused Porsche hardware is exactly what a Speed badge is made of. If 888 hp really is the comfort ceiling, there will never be a Torcal Speed. Crewe starts building the car in early 2027, so the honest answer arrives with the first facelift rather than with the first deliveries.
