2013 Bentley Continental Gt Speed 2dr Cpe on 2040-cars

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Bentley warns its 6.0-liter W12 engine won't survive beyond 2026

Bentley confirmed it will only sell plug-in hybrid and electric models by 2026, so its W12 engine will either be axed. Autoblog learned from a company spokesperson that the latter solution has been chosen. "No more W12," a representative replied when we asked what the future holds for the engine. It's a tectonic shift for Bentley, which proudly calls itself one of the industry's largest manufacturers of 12-cylinders. What remains to be seen is when the 6.0-liter will retire. Jan-Henrik Lafrentz, Bentley's board member for finance, affirmed there is "a lot of mileage left in [the W12]," which suggests it's not going away in the coming days, weeks, or months. Its days are undoubtedly numbered, however, which shows the British firm isn't afraid to make difficult decisions to keep up with regulations and market demand. It illustrated this point well when it axed the Mulsanne, its flagship model in the 2010s, earlier in 2020. Pivoting toward electric powertrains gives it an opportunity to return to the segment; sedans normally return better range than comparable SUVs because they tend to be lighter and more aerodynamic. Will it? Executives didn't say a comeback is imminent, but they didn't rule it out, either. "The market for big sedans is interesting. It has changed a lot over the past 20 years. It's not in a growth phase. While we have a great heritage in that space, we have a perfect sedan with the Flying Spur, so let's see what evolves as we release and reveal our electric car strategy," said company boss Adrian Hallmark. Bentley's first series-produced electric car is tentatively due out in 2025. Built on a new platform, it will be the first in a full range of EVs, and the company pledged to phase out the internal combustion engine by 2030.

Audi's Project Artemis woes could delay range of VW Group EVs

Two years ago, Audi's then new CEO Markus Duesmann announced his first big initiative called Project Artemis. The plan's marquee component is "to implement a new lighthouse project for Audi in record time," being "a highly efficient electric car scheduled to be on the road as early as 2024" on a brand new platform that would be shared with Porsche and Bentley. An ex-VW and -Porsche man named Alex Hitzinger, who'd also spent time at Apple working on the tech company's electric car, was brought on board to lead Project Artemis and come up with new ideas. Parent Volkswagen Group said it wanted to become "as agile as in a racing team," removing the bureaucratic molasses and bottlenecks interfering with getting the best product on the road in the best time. However, in any grand venture, failure comes before success. Automobilwoche reports that Artemis is struggling through issues large enough to push the product plans back by years. The issue, as it was with the ID.3 lineup on the eve of that car's launch, is software. Well, that's the latest, largest problem; Artemis has already been through copious struggles before getting to the software bit. Two months after Hitzinger came on, in December 2020, VW raised its EV volume target from 50% to 70% by 2030. That necessitated a rethink of the VW Group's entire platform strategy considering the far greater production scale. Hitzinger only lasted six months in the job, ousted in May 2021, supposedly because Audi believed his ideas were "not suitable for profitable series production" among other reasons. By that time, the pace of software development was already said to be six months behind schedule, with the Car.Software division working on VW.OS 2.0 "not yet running at the speed hoped for." Internal frictions were noteworthy and costly as well. VW's commercial division plant in Hanover was meant to build Artemis vehicles for Audi, Porsche and Bentley, but Automobilwoche reported in January of this year that Porsche paid a ""small three-digit million amount" — like $100 million or so — to get out of the deal mandating its vehicles come from the Hanover facility.    So Audi effectively brought Artemis in-house to lead vehicle development, and Car.Software turned into Cariad to get VW.OS and VW.AC, which stands for Automotive Cloud, to market.  The first Audi vehicle under Project Artemis was planned to arrive by the end of 2024, a production version of the Grandsphere concept.

What it's like to drive Bentley's Continental GT3 racecar

I'm gliding across the back roads of Napa in a Bentley Flying Spur V8 S, and all is right with the world. Two and a half tons of metal, leather, and hubris provide insulation, while the audio system's eleven speakers smother me with the syrupy sounds of Katy Perry as the landscape floats past. My guilty pleasure is mine alone, because this bank vault on wheels is practically soundproof. But I'll soon be harnessed into a fearsome hellion that would terrify all but the edgiest of Bentley owners. I'm headed to Sonoma Raceway to drive the 2,800-pound, 600-plus-horsepower Bentley Continental GT3 racecar. Goodbye swankiness, hello madness. Bentley probably isn't the first brand you associate with racing, but the Flying B's competition highlights include Le Mans wins in 1924, 1927, 1928, 1929, 1930, and, most recently, a top finish at the fabled endurance event with the brand's 2003 return. The 1-2 victory in '03 came in the wildly engineered LMGTP prototype class; it wasn't until a more relatable, Continental GT-based car was campaigned eight years later that Bentley unlocked the full potential of its rich history. "Motorsports is essentially a business tool," Bentley race boss Brian Gush told Autoblog at the GT3's race debut three years ago, reinforcing the industry's familiar "race on Sunday, sell on Monday" mantra. But let's also tip a hat to the intangible: There's something undeniably cool about watching a beefed-up version of your daily driver battling it out on a world-class track, especially when that car is a fat-cat luxury coupe that seems better suited to the boulevard than the race circuit. After swapping blue jeans for a Nomex jumpsuit, I watch as the GT3 emerges from the transporter, and the sight is downright intimidating. It's wide and low, with an impossibly big wing. There's another source of intimidation: While a small group of journalists has sampled Bentley's media car, I'm about to get behind the wheel of a privateer-owned car. No pressure. "Ever met the owner?" a Bentley rep asks, referring to Team Absolute's Adderly Fong. "He's a big guy, mean, with a really short temper," he quips, which is essentially shorthand for "don't wreck his car." I crack a tentative smile, acknowledging the not-so-veiled message. Bentley test driver Butch Leitzinger gives me the lowdown on this particular GT3, which happens to be coming fresh off a top-ten finish at the weekend's Pirelli World Cup Challenge.