Bentley's first EV will be an SUV built on Audi's Project Artemis

When Bentley releases its first all-electric model by mid-decade, it will be an SUV, according to CEO Adrian Hallmark. "If you're not in SUVs, you're nowhere," the executive told Car Magazine (via Autoblog), adding, "2025 is the right time for us."

Hallmark didn't provide many more details on the car but did say Bentley plans to build it on top of Audi's Project Artemis chassis. In 2020, Audi CEO Markus Duesmann noted the platform would be ready by early 2024. Hallmark's comments suggest Bentley will be one of the first brands under the Volkswagen Group umbrella to take advantage of the platform. "With our current cars, we had to get into the engineering largely after they [the platforms] had been done," Hallmark said. "The difference now is that with Artemis we're right in there at the beginning, helping define it. We're not leading it, but we're going to be a beneficiary of it."

In the meantime, well-heeled consumers should expect to see more partial electrification of Bentley's lineup. Last year, the company announced it would release plug-in versions of all of its models by 2023, with all of its cars being either fully electric or hybrids by 2026.