Bentley CEO Adrian Hallmark Has a Plan B If the World Doesn’t Go Electric

Most chairmen of the board would likely love to be in Adrian Hallmark‘s position right now.

The Bentley chairman and CEO, now in his sixth year, is overseeing yet another spectacular year for the Flying B brand. Profits for the first six months hit €390 million ($423 million), the second-best result ever after 2022 — and that year was just two percent better. With 7,096 cars rolling out the door during that period, the figure works out to $59,600 in profit per unit — margins that would be the envy of most businesses not named Lockheed Martin or Boeing.

Under Hallmark’s watch, the brand has pushed its boundaries further upwards. Bentley has sold 48 cars with price tags of $2 million or more — a price that would have been inconceivable for the brand’s wares a decade ago. Hallmark says there’s ample room below that number, too; while every one of the brand’s cars currently starts comfortably below the half-million-dollar mark, the chairman says he believes there’s room for the company to sell between 500 and 1,000 vehicles a year with window stickers between $500,000 and $1.5 million.

Carmakers, like sharks, die if they stay still, however.

“Next year, we’ll be pushing a new frontier with more launches,” Hallmark says. The brand is planning five new models in the next five years, including one that breaks from the current paradigm of a lineup composed of gran turismo coupe, convertible, luxury sedan and SUV. “We will enter a new segment, but it’s a segment that you will recognize.” (In other words, don’t expect something offbeat like the Lamborghini Lanzador.)

Bentley

But there’s still potential drama lurking beneath the waves. Bentley has staked its future on going electric by 2030, betting the proverbial farm on becoming one of the greenest, most efficient automakers — even if, as Hallmark admits, the company’s relatively miniscule production of 15,000 cars a year isn’t enough to make a difference in global CO2 emissions.

However, whispers in the automotive industry — spoken too low for the suits in Brussels and Washington to hear — hint at potential resistance to the full-court governmental press towards electric vehicles.

An iSeeCars study issued in August 2023 states that new and used electric cars now sit on dealer lots twice as long as they did just one year ago; meanwhile, Ford CEO Jim Farley recently dialed back the carmaker’s expectations for EV sales, and announced FoMoCo’s intentions to quadruple the number of planned hybrids. Variation in charging standards has only added to the confusion — and, perhaps, caution.

Hallmark says he’s prepared for the push to electrification to slow, should it happen.

“We’ve got safety mechanisms,” he says. “If we have to use them, it will still damage us — but not as much as if we didn’t have them.”

One example: the carmaker’s current and forthcoming roster of internal combustion engines. Now that the iconic W12 motor has passed out of production, the brand is in a better position to face forthcoming strictures on the wastes coming out of their tailpipes.

“We’ll get ready to make our engines meet all the standards by 2027,” he says, referring to the year when stricter EPA rules are expected to kick in. Should the market still demand internal-combustion Bentleys past 2030, the brand could technically keep building those 2027-ready engines and the cars for them.

That said, he’s certainly not backing away from batteries.

“We’re confident we can make confident, aspirational, better Bentleys [with electric powertrains] than ever before,” he says. “We can make something that makes the current [Continental GT] look quite primitive.”

Bentley

Hallmark’s dream of Bentley’s future, however, is neither internal combustion nor pure electric power. Rather, it’s a zero-emission car that still takes liquid fuel — fuel made of the most common, if blimp-unfriendly, element in the universe.

“An electric hydrogen hybrid is the perfect Bentley powertrain,” Hallmark says. He sketches out a vision for what such a car would look like: a hydrogen fuel cell that charges the battery packs, electric motors that produce 1,600 horsepower, a thousand kilometers of driving range, all in a coupe body like that of the Continental GT. “The ultimate zero-impact luxury product,” he calls it.

Considering the success Bentley has achieved under Hallmark, hey, it might happen. Dreams sometimes come true … especially when you’re the dreamer in charge.

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