Next month Bentley will reveal its first battery-electric vehicle, the Torcal, which is in the final stages of testing. The electric Torcal will serve as Bentley's entry model and cost less than a Bentayga. Clad in plastic and wrapped in multi-hued dazzle camouflage, it's shorter in length and height compared to a Bentayga but maintains similar interior volume thanks to EV packaging efficiencies. The Torcal shares engineering with the Porsche Cayenne EV, reworked by Bentley to suit its needs. Targeting the sports SUV segment, the vehicle is 5 meters long and aims for 300 miles EPA range or 600 km WLTP, with 400 kW DC fast-charging capability.

Don't expect the Cayenne's quadruple-figure power output. Martin Page, product line director for the Torcal, stated: "We'll be well over a thousand newton-meters of torque [737 lb-ft], which is one of the sort of enabling pillars of the technology, which is fantastic. There'll be over 850 PS [838 hp/625 kW], but we're not chasing four figures."

Rather than sample one of its 6.75 L V8 engines, Bentley used artists playing drums to recreate the V8 firing order. "We chose to use artists, humans to recreate the pattern," Page said. "So they play the firing order, the V8 on drums. If you think about the actual mechanical engine itself, it is imperfect. It has tolerances in it. So it has natural variation in the idle beat."

The effect is subtle but convincing from inside the car, and because it's a Bentley, the sound is never loud or obnoxious. The sound is mapped to powertrain load.