Bentley’s Game-Changing New EV Is Pretending To Be A Porsche

It’s just a Porsche Cayenne prototype out for testing, right? Nope, this big electric SUV, which is cleverly disguised as something from Stuttgart, is trying to deceive you. The CarBuzz spy photographers snagged this prototype for the electric Bentley out and about in incognito mode as part of its winter test regimen.

How can we know for sure when it clearly has Porsche lights at the front and the back (and looks almost identical to the Cayenne electric prototypes we’ve spotted this month)? Look at the license plate and you’ll find this SUV’s secret.

Bentley Using Its Family Roots For A Clever Disguise

The UK flag and UK-style text on the number plate is a pretty obvious sign that this isn’t a German SUV, or at least it isn’t German-registered. But the UK has one other trick, and that’s that you can use a number plate to look up the make and year of almost any vehicle. The DVLA database includes vehicles dating back to the very first days of the car, so, predictably, it has this one.

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This plate belongs to a Bentley, says His Majesty the King. It’s tough to tell what Bentley is trying to hide, but this appears to be a prototype for its new sub-Bentayga-sized electric SUV. Just like how the current gas-engine Bentayga is related to the Porsche Cayenne, this new model will be closely tied to the electric Cayenne.

Electric Bentley SUV Confirmed In November

Bentley confirmed the model in a teaser it revealed last November. It said that it had cooled its original 2030 all-EV plan but that it was still working on this SUV. The British luxury carmaker described it as “a little more compact” than the Bentayga and said it would be the under 5-meter (16.4 feet) length that gives it a chance at finding street parking in Europe’s dense and ancient cities.

That size would make it about a foot shorter than the Bentayga. It would be about the same length as a current Cayenne, so hardly small lest you think Bentley was planning some sort of supermini.

The Porsche Cayenne EV is expected to go on sale next year. The EV is set to be based on the PPE electric architecture used in the Porsche Macan EV. We’ve seen the new Cayenne exercising that 800-volt architecture before, with the eCayenne absolutely launching at the Nürburgring.

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While Porsche and Audi have struggled with electric sales, things could be different for Bentley. Its main rival, Rolls-Royce, has announced interest in its own EV, the Spectre, has been extremely strong. The Spectre coupe was the number two selling Rolls last year, crushing the Cullinan SUV.

Sales of the Rolls EV were so strong that the automaker continued down the path of electrification where others had reversed course. Its second EV is set to launch this year. Over in Crewe, Bentley’s Luxury Urban SUV, as it’s being called for now, will have tech that “nobody else is doing right now,” so it should be worth the wait when it arrives next year.