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Bentley CEO Adrian Hallmark explains carmaker's situation and plan for recovery

In August, we posted on some of the issues plaguing Bentley at the moment, namely the large loss the carmaker's posted this year. The same Autocar piece we referenced, carmaker CEO Adrian Hallmark said Bentley would not be making more sports cars. Bentley wrote to us to clarify that a single year's loss isn't a calamity, that "it is a mistake to suggest that sports cars are the same as GTs," and that the brand "will continue to design, engineer, and craft" GT cars. We must note, though, that at the time, Hallmark himself said, "The sports car sector – like our own...." More recently, Hallmark expounded on some of the factors slowing the company down this year, from delayed launches to exchange rates. Through the first nine months of the year, Bentley sold 6,654 units, an 11 percent decline from the 7,498 units sold through the first nine months of 2017. In addition to other matters like huge investments in new technologies, that helped the Crewe carmaker to a $44.7-million year-over-year drop in revenue, and a $156-million overall loss, compared to a $35 million profit over the same period last year. On top of declining sales overall, the nine-month delay in launching the Continental GT, the brand's second-best seller, was the first of two big issues causing red finances. Hallmark said the Continental GT "just wasn't ready for launch. But we'd paid for it – we'd paid all the money out, but not got any money back in." Having got that sorted, the second issue arose: WLTP certification. Unlike the New European Driving Cycle (NEDC) before it, the Worldwide harmonized Light vehicles Test Procedure requires every model variant get tested for certification. Hallmark told Automotive News Europe, "We were not quick enough unfortunately to book capacity or prioritize our derivatives within some of the group processes to get them certified on time." Bentley wasn't alone in this; Volkswagen had only managed to get seven of its 14 models approved by September 1 when the WLTP rules took effect. Bentley's much smaller scale exacerbated the problem, turning the situation "close to catastrophic." Hallmark said the snafu robbed the Bentayga of 300 to 400 sales - a gigantic number with respect to a $200,000 vehicle - and pushed the Bentayga plug-in hybrid launch back to March 2019 so Bentley could get volume models certified. Furthermore, preparing for Brexit hasn't been easy on any of the UK's manufacturers.

Audi CEO says brand's EVs are almost as profitable as its other cars

After, oh, a hundred years or so of building vehicles primarily powered by internal combustion engines, automakers around the world have been and still are pumping billions of dollars into the development of electric vehicle technology. Everything from platforms and batteries to motors and the software to control it all requires untold hours of development, and that takes time and money. Fortunately, it's not going to take long for that massive investment to start paying off, at least according to Audi CEO Markus Duesmann, who told Reuters in an interview that "The point where we earn as much money with electric cars as with combustion engine cars is now, or ... next year, 2023. They are very even now, the prices." As a brand, Audi contributed more than a quarter of overall profit for the massive Volkswagen Group, which has such powerhouse brands as Volkswagen and Porsche among others. Under the Audi umbrella are Lamborghini, Bentley and Ducati, and it seems those high-end branches aren't going anywhere, at least for now. "These brands ... are very valuable very profitable brands, where we can even expand the synergy level in the future," Duesmann said in the interview. "There are no plans whatsoever to get rid of them." Despite the overall profitability of the brand, the ongoing global chip crisis is causing headaches. "We had a very strong first half in 2021. We do expect a much weaker second half," said Duesmann, who added, "We really have trouble." In fact, so serious is the trouble that the brand is forced into "a day-to-day troubleshooting process" to limit the chip-shortage damage. The good news for the automaker is that Audi has been able to boost its profit margin from 8% prior to the pandemic in 2019 to 10.7% in the first half of 2021. The bad news is that various chip shortages aren't expected to get a whole lot better over the rest of the year. Related video:

Bentley Bentayga to add gasoline V8 before plug-in hybrid powertrains bows

The Bentley Bentayga offers exactly one powertrain in the US: a 6.0 liter W12 with 600 horsepower and 664 pound-feet of torque. Overseas buyers get the additional option of a 4.0 liter diesel V8 with 429 hp and 664 lb-ft - the same oil burner from the Audi SQ7, denied us after Volkswagen Group pulled diesels from the US market. Auto Motor und Sport reports that Bentley will add two more powertrains to the mix over the next year, but it's unclear whether any of them will come here: a 4.0-liter gasoline V8, and a plug-in hybrid. The German publication expects the Porsche-developed 4.0-liter, twin-turbo V8 to get the nod for Bentley use. That engine serves in the Porsche Cayenne Turbo (550 hp/567 lb-ft) and Lamborghini Urus (650 hp/627 lb-ft), which both share their MLB platform with the Bentayga. Making sure not to step on the toes of the W12, the 4.0-liter petrol V8 will get something like the Cayenne Turbo's 550 hp. We've seen spy shots of the Bentayga PHEV testing at the Nurburgring, but we weren't sure what the SUV used for motivation. Porsche again donates equipment for the plug-in hybrid Bentayga, the forthcoming powertrain swiped from the Panamera 4 E-Hybrid. In the Porsche, total output comes to 462 hp and 516 lb-ft. Spy shooters captured a photo of an "EV Mode" button inside the Bentayga, so we know it will do silent running; the 14.1 kWh battery in the Panamera E-Hybrid provides 31 miles of electric-only range. Both powertrains will provide a lower price point for the Bentayga compared to the W12, a stat line that should increase the big Bentley's appeal even though sales already qualify as gangbusters, considering the vehicle. According to AMS, the 4.0-liter gas V8 Bentayga should show up sometime around summer 2018, the PHEV to follow. Related Video: