Automotive News Europe - December 2019 - S7

AUTOMOTIVE NEWS EUROPE

TALK FROM THE TOP

We have reduced people and non-peo- tive in price or body style or are there
ple-related costs significantly compared subsegments where we would want to
with the forecast for this year. We have enter? We could take one of the existing
reduced running costs by a quarter.
nameplates and that could be the first
electric car, but we wouldn't take an exSo you have had layoffs?
isting car and try and fit batteries into
We released 450 people in total. About it because there's a compromise from a
380 of those were full-time employees. range and efficiency point of view.
The rest were temporary employees.
And all of those 380 were as a result of a Are you planning to use the PPE luxvoluntary early-retirement offer. We im- ury EV architecture from your parent,
proved the takt time [time spent on each Volkswagen Group?
station] from more than 12 minutes to The ambition is that we would go onto
9 minutes on all of the assembly lines a new group architecture. Therefore, we
and in the paint and trim areas. If you go are currently working to define all the
back through automotive case studies, I parameters that we would need. PPE is a
would expect that reduction is as big or group approach and different brands are
probably bigger than what any factory leading different parts of it.
has done in a 12-month period.
What part is Bentley leading?
Do you need Brexit to be finalized be- I can't comment.
fore you expand Bentley's manufacYou have spoken about cars becomturing footprint in Crewe?
Yes and no. There are two levels of ex- ing bigger and smaller. Would a future
pansion that we need as a company. battery-driven Bentley be smaller?
One is to upgrade and professionalize Smaller is a relative thing because we
what we do today, and the other is to are not going to build a Mini. It would
prepare for new products and new tech- be space optimized. Take the Jaguar Inologies. It's important to separate the Pace. The interior volume is the same
two because we don't want to be doing as the Range Rover, but it's about 35cm
basic infrastructure upgrades when the shorter. We would always build it so
clock is ticking to build a new car or a
new assembly hall for the car.

that the interior is Bentley-sized and to
Bentley's standards. You don't need as
much overhang, but that also doesn't
mean we want to build a small car. We
just don't want to waste space on the
outside either. We see the batteryelectric vehicle architecture as being a
liberator of that potential.
Does an EV platform inevitably mean
it's going to be a crossover?
I think electric cars will be slightly higher
because of where the batteries are now.
However, with new battery technologies,
it will be possible to make cars that are
lower as well as cars that are taller because the increased power density will
overcome the aero resistance.
Does that mean you will be moving to
solid state batteries?
I'm not saying that we are guaranteed
to go solid state, but that is already on
the radar within that mid-2020s period. They are about 30 percent lighter
for the same power as lithium-ion. An
I-pace has 720kg of batteries so going to 500kg instead of 720kg makes
a difference. Also, think about how that
ANE
changes the packaging.

What needs to be done to prepare for
new products?
It's all about electrification. You asked
whether Brexit uncertainty held back our
investment. It's actually not been about
Brexit. It's been about getting the company straight, getting it profitable and
having a clear view of when the right
time would be to bring the first full-electric cars to market. We have said 2025 is
the earliest we can get a credible batteryelectric Bentley [on the road]. Therefore,
the next phase of our investment would
be linked to that electrification. We are
still working on whether we produce the
cars on the same line or have supplementary build areas that bring in subcomponents in a different way.
Does Bentley's battery-electric car
need to be a stand-alone model?
It's more about market opportunity than
product portfolio. Which segment do
you want to go into first? Are there any
segments where we are not yet fully ac-

2019

In Partnership with

It took Bentley longer than planned to launch its new Continental
GT coupe (shown).

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Automotive News Europe - December 2019

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