The famed Bentley hood ornament. PA
The famed Bentley hood ornament. PA
The famed Bentley hood ornament. PA
The famed Bentley hood ornament. PA

Bentley to stop making W12 petrol engines in move to electric


Soraya Ebrahimi
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Production of Bentley's famed 12-cylinder petrol engine will end in April next year, the luxury car maker has said.

Over the past 20 years, more than 100,000 W12 engines have been built at the company’s factory in Crewe, Cheshire.

The decision to halt production is part of its move to electric cars.

“Our progressive journey towards sustainable luxury mobility means making changes to every area of Bentley Motors," chairman and chief executive Adrian Hallmark said.

“When we first launched the W12 back in 2003, we knew we had a mighty engine that would propel both our cars and the brand forwards at speed.

“Twenty years and more than 100,000 W12s later, the time has come to retire this now iconic powertrain as we take strides towards electrification.”

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Jim Holder, editorial director of magazine What Car?, described the W12 as “an icon of combustion engines, famed for its power, smoothness, refinement and more”.

“It should be remembered as one example of the peak of what can be achieved technically with combustion engines," Holder said.

“But Bentley and its customers are acknowledging that we are entering a new environmentally conscious era, where outright performance and luxury can still be attained, but in a less consumptive manner.”

Bentley said it hoped to “retrain and redeploy” the 30 workers involved in assembling and testing W12s.

Bentley Mulliner Batur - in pictures

All of Bentley’s models will be available with the option of a hybrid powertrain when production of the petrol engine is stopped.

The company has pledged that all of its cars will be fully electric by the start of the next decade.

Sales of new petrol and diesel cars and vans in the UK will be banned from 2030, with new plug-in hybrids outlawed five years later.

Bentley, owned by the Volkswagen Group, made record sales last year.

The company, founded in 1919, said it delivered 15,174 cars in 2022.

The 4 per cent increase, compared with the previous 12 months, was driven by demand in the Americas, Europe and Asia Pacific.

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The struggle is on for active managers

David Einhorn closed out 2018 with his biggest annual loss ever for the 22-year-old Greenlight Capital.

The firm’s main hedge fund fell 9 per cent in December, extending this year’s decline to 34 percent, according to an investor update viewed by Bloomberg.

Greenlight posted some of the industry’s best returns in its early years, but has stumbled since losing more than 20 per cent in 2015.

Other value-investing managers have also struggled, as a decade of historically low interest rates and the rise of passive investing and quant trading pushed growth stocks past their inexpensive brethren. Three Bays Capital and SPO Partners & Co., which sought to make wagers on undervalued stocks, closed in 2018. Mr Einhorn has repeatedly expressed his frustration with the poor performance this year, while remaining steadfast in his commitment to value investing.

Greenlight, which posted gains only in May and October, underperformed both the broader market and its peers in 2018. The S&P 500 Index dropped 4.4 per cent, including dividends, while the HFRX Global Hedge Fund Index, an early indicator of industry performance, fell 7 per cent through December. 28.

At the start of the year, Greenlight managed $6.3 billion in assets, according to a regulatory filing. By May, the firm was down to $5.5bn. 

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Updated: February 22, 2023, 12:01 AM