All posts in “adrian hallmark”

Bentley CEO Adrian Hallmark explains carmaker’s situation and plan for recovery

In August, we posted on some of the issues plaguing Bentley at the moment, namely the large loss the carmaker’s posted this year. The same Autocar piece we referenced, carmaker CEO Adrian Hallmark said Bentley would not be making more sports cars. Bentley wrote to us to clarify that a single year’s loss isn’t a calamity, that “it is a mistake to suggest that sports cars are the same as GTs,” and that the brand “will continue to design, engineer, and craft” GT cars. We must note, though, that at the time, Hallmark himself said, “The sports car sector – like our own….” More recently, Hallmark expounded on some of the factors slowing the company down this year, from delayed launches to exchange rates.

Through the first nine months of the year, Bentley sold 6,654 units, an 11 percent decline from the 7,498 units sold through the first nine months of 2017. In addition to other matters like huge investments in new technologies, that helped the Crewe carmaker to a $44.7-million year-over-year drop in revenue, and a $156-million overall loss, compared to a $35 million profit over the same period last year.

On top of declining sales overall, the nine-month delay in launching the Continental GT, the brand’s second-best seller, was the first of two big issues causing red finances. Hallmark said the Continental GT “just wasn’t ready for launch. But we’d paid for it – we’d paid all the money out, but not got any money back in.”

Bentley dévoile la nouvelle Continental GTC

Having got that sorted, the second issue arose: WLTP certification. Unlike the New European Driving Cycle (NEDC) before it, the Worldwide harmonized Light vehicles Test Procedure requires every model variant get tested for certification. Hallmark told Automotive News Europe, “We were not quick enough unfortunately to book capacity or prioritize our derivatives within some of the group processes to get them certified on time.” Bentley wasn’t alone in this; Volkswagen had only managed to get seven of its 14 models approved by September 1 when the WLTP rules took effect.

Bentley’s much smaller scale exacerbated the problem, turning the situation “close to catastrophic.” Hallmark said the snafu robbed the Bentayga of 300 to 400 sales – a gigantic number with respect to a $200,000 vehicle – and pushed the Bentayga plug-in hybrid launch back to March 2019 so Bentley could get volume models certified.

Furthermore, preparing for Brexit hasn’t been easy on any of the UK’s manufacturers. For Bentley, which sources many components from The Continent, uncertainty around a Brexit deal has weakened the pound sterling against the euro. That makes parts more expensive.

The carmaker’s already on the road back, led by the uncorked Bentayga V12, V8, and Continental GT, and just-revealed GTC. The CEO said Bentley be back in black in Q4 of this year, but 2019 is the real measure. “This year is a conversion year to a better business model,” he said, “and next year you will start to see significant growth and a return to normality in terms of profit.”

Bentley dévoile la nouvelle Continental GTC

The phrase “significant growth” doesn’t just apply to sales figures of the current lineup. Hallmark intends to grow the range, and Bentley’s interests beyond cars. Plug-in hybrid versions of current models will help build the bridge to a battery-electric offering by 2025. Engineers are aiming for substantial EV range in the hybrids, eventually around 60 to 70 miles. It seems Bentley turned down the chance to build its own car on Porsche’s Taycan platform, because a GT car isn’t a sports car, and it won’t be until the mid 2020s that “the [battery] technology will meet the needs of the bigger cars we need to build.”

The other bridge-builder will be a new nameplate “that will probably be… the transition between conventional products and battery electrical products.”

On the subject of conventional products, the Bentayga will evolve with a facelift and a coupe-ish sub-model, but Hallmark wouldn’t be drawn on that latter point. With an eye on launching something new every year, Mulliner will be drafted into creating more “limited or special editions, slightly different body styles or limited-run cars.” Next year being the centenary, we already know there’ll be something special for every current nameplate.

Once the traditional sheetmetal business is back on track, Hallmark wants more involvement in brick-and-mortar businesses. The firm designed 26 apartments in Miami’s Porsche Tower and will provide on-demand Bentleys for residents, there’s a Bentley furniture collection, a re-upped agreement with watchmaker Breitling, and plans for more jewelry. We’ll see how it turns out, but this could be the road map to that makes The Flying B soar.

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November 29, 2018 / Comments Off on Bentley CEO Adrian Hallmark explains carmaker’s situation and plan for recovery
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New Bentley boss nixes any new sports cars in its money-losing lineup

Adrian Hallmark took over the helm at Bentley on February 1 this year. Volkswagen poached him from Jaguar, where he headed the brand’s global strategy. Or perhaps we should say re-poached him, since Hallmark served as Bentley’s board member in charge of sales and marketing from 1999 to 2005, and helped guide the original Continental GT to market. He’s now responsible getting Bentley in better shape financially and sales-wise, and positioning it for growth. Among the products necessary to do that, Hallmark recently told Autocar that flashy coupes won’t cut it. “I’ll tell you what we won’t be building,” he said, “and that’s sports cars.”

That means we can forget about the gorgeous EXP 10 Speed 6 coupe that had a rumored place in the lineup after a sub-Bentayga CUV, and the EXP 12 Speed 6e battery-electric convertible. Hallmark cited a few issues with the segment, the first being that the segment hasn’t yet recovered from the recession, and the buyer demographic that’s left goes up in age every year, clearly a losing game. The kinds of younger buyers who would buy Bentleys, athletes and entertainers, are deterred from the purchase by contractual limitations like injury clauses or aversion to paparazzi photos. As well, in China, wealthy buyers get SUVs or limousines, but Hallmark believes Bentley hasn’t adopted the the proper strategy there to take advantage.

This is far more than about sports cars for Bentley, though; a recent article in German newspaper Handelsblatt outlined a number of situations the carmaker needs to rectify, including the finding that Bentley’s “losing money hand over fist instead of racking up the hefty margins more typical of the class.” A German study claimed that whereas Ferrari makes around $80,000 on every car it sells, and Porsche makes a little more than $19,000 on each car (last year it was a little more than $17,000) Bentley loses a little more than $19,000 on each unit. The English manufacturer has posted an operating loss of roughly $92 million through the first six months of 2018, the latest figures in a decline that began in 2014. That financial timeline, however, coincides with Bentley’s $1.1B investment in new technologies, which the carmaker cites as the reason for profitability woes.

Beyond that, Handelsblatt claimed VW insiders said the recent Continental GT launch was the “worst production ramp-up of all time.” Bentayga sales are down a little in Europe, quite a bit in the U.S., and overall brand sales are down nearly ten percent globally this year. Bentley needs to invest its electrification plans — it wants electrified versions of all its models by 2025 — and that’s going to be expensive. The report said those insiders want Porsche to have a bigger hand in helping Bentley get on track and move forward.

That would tie in well with Hallmark’s experience, too, since he did a stint in charge of Porsche UK. He told Autocar that in addition to V8 models throughout the lineup, he’d like to crib from Porsche’s proficiency in creating special editions with more luxury or performance, and Stuttgart’s success in making its hybrid models the most desirable. Bentley wants to crack 15,000 to 20,000 units globally. The most it has achieved in the past five years is around 11,300.

Somehow, though, while tiny, independent Aston Martin gets stronger than its ever been with a growing lineup of incredible sports cars, Bentley has to walk away from the segment that made it what it is today.

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August 21, 2018 / Comments Off on New Bentley boss nixes any new sports cars in its money-losing lineup
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