The Bentley Bentayga Hybrid shouldn’t be a shock. The company has said it would come out with this ridiculous machine for over three years, and it just showed up at the Geneva Motor Show, but we still find ourselves perplexed. Who is this plug-in hybrid luxury SUV actually for? Conceivably, anyone who buys a Bentayga isn’t a fan of conservation. They’re a fan of excess. The Bentayga is an exercise in excess and luxury. People who buy one want the best leather, best wood trim, and the best of every other material out there. Now they can get all that, and they get to pretend to save the environment, too.
All that said, the Bentayga Hybrid is a pretty cool technological head-scratcher. It gets about 31 miles of pure electric driving. The vehicle also uses GPS positioning to calculate when the electric power would be best used. That means you’ll get the most benefit out of the electric power. It also has everything the regular Bentayga does, so you can still put the plebes in their place while whirring by on electric power.
Here are the vehicle’s details:
- The power plant is a 3.0-liter V6 turbo paired with electric motors. No horsepower or torque numbers have been released, but Roadshow reported that a Bentley spokesperson told the publication power would be “more than 400 bhp, with more than 100 bhp of that figure coming from the electric motor.”
- The battery can recharge in 2.5 hours on 240-volt power. The Bentayga Hybrid can be plugged into any EV power station, but in true Bentley style, the company has its’ own wall-mounted home charging station that’s made with high-class, eco-friendly materials.
- As we listed above, the full electric power will get you 31 miles. The SUV can drive in pure hybrid mode (which best utilizes the electric power via the GPS), electric-only mode, or in a Hold Mode. This mode holds the electric charge and runs the SUV on the gas engine exclusively until you decide you want to use the electric power.
- Inside, the Bentayga Hybrid comes with an 8-inch touchscreen and a removable 10.2-inch removable Android tablet. The tablet offers LTE Wi-Fi, allowing passengers to surf the web or do whatever they want.
- Aside from the hybrid powertrain and the tech inside, the vehicle is mostly unchanged. It’s still the luxury SUV we’ve come to know with the finest leather, wood, and other various materials.
Pricing for this model has not yet been released. The Bentayga Hybrid will go on sale the second half of 2018. Who will buy it? We’re not sure. We doubt anyone has ever said, “Nope. Not buying a Bentayga because it burns too much gasoline.” As Jalopnik points out, Bentley probably doesn’t expect to sell boatloads of these, and the Bentayga Hybrid is more an effort to comply with future emissions regulations than woo the environmentally conscious.
