That’s how much Bentley and Lamborghini earn per car

No wonder the profit margin of a manufacturer of an expensive luxury car is higher than that of a cheap city car. But would you have guessed that Bentley and Lamborghini make that much per car?

Automakers are getting smarter financially. Every brand is trying to work more and more efficiently to get more profit per car. If you’ve been paying attention in the car world for the last few years, you know that every brand – especially high in the market – has pretty much the same plans. Not necessarily selling a lot more cars per year, but making a lot more profit per model.

sharing technology

As mentioned, this is quite difficult in the lower segments. After all, you can’t charge exorbitant amounts for B and C segment cars because customers just won’t buy from you. Platform and technology sharing then makes up for it, and that’s exactly why different brands within large corporations use the same technology. For example, the production costs of a car are lower and therefore they work more efficiently.

At the forefront of the market, automakers know exactly how to get customers to pay as much as possible for a car. If you have a budget that weighs tons or more, you don’t want a bare car. On the contrary, customers shopping in the higher segments want a version with as many (and preferably personalized) options as possible. And the automakers know how to react to that all too well.

Expensive option packs

Just look at manufacturers’ option lists. Where a brand like Toyota provides extensive driving assistants as standard in every Yaris, with brands like Porsche and Bentley you simply have to tick a very expensive option package for things like adaptive cruise control or a lane assistant. And with endless personalization options, you just have a chance to put big bucks into a car. When the choice is huge, so is the price.

We were confronted with that again this week, as Lamborghini and Bentley have shared their annual figures for 2022. And those numbers show that both companies’ profits have really grown tremendously, but the two haven’t sold much more cars than they did in 2021.

Profit per car for Bentley

We start with Bentley. The British automaker sold 15,174 cars last year. This is only four percent more than in the previous year. However, Bentley’s profit is up a staggering 82 percent to €708 million. If we simply divide that by the number of cars sold, Bentley earned more than €46,000 per car last year. That is more than 20,000 euros more per car than in 2021. Of course, this profit does not come directly from the sale of a car, but it gives an idea of ​​the margin for such a luxury model.

Lamborghini earned even more money per car delivered last year. It sold a total of 9233 cars (2021: 8405) and made a profit of 614 million (2021: 393 million). A quick calculation shows that in 2022 the Italians earned more than 66,500 euros per car sold. That is also more than 20,000 euros more profit per car than a year earlier. So Porsche? Last year, 2.6 percent more cars were sold, but profit increased by 27.4 percent. It was a profit of almost 22,000 euros per car.

More volume?

Okay, what do you think all these luxury brands will focus on going forward? They really don’t want to turn up the volume much more. After all, their cars should remain exclusive. No, they want to add value for the customer. And so it may be that Bentley, Lamborghini and other luxury brands post record profits again this year.