Review: Rolls-Royce Spectre EV

The Rolls-Royce Spectre, the company's first production EV, has been a very long time coming. Not because it has suffered the numerous delays and setbacks Elon's Cybertruck has endured, but due to the lesser known fact that both Henry Royce and Charles Rolls had a documented fascination with all things electric years before they started their car business in 1906.

Royce's first company, founded in 1884, created dynamos and electric crane motors. and it patented the bayonet-style lightbulb fitting. Rolls, after experiencing an early electric motor car named the Columbia, in April 1900, declared its electric drive to be “perfectly noiseless and clean. There is no smell or vibration, and they should become very useful when fixed charging stations can be arranged.”

Fast forward 123 years, and we may not have yet cracked the problem of sufficient fixed charging stations, but Rolls-Royce, after experimenting with electric powertrains since 2011, is finally ready to release its first EV. Crucially, this isn't the Rolls-Royce company from the start of the 20th century, of course. That went into receivership in 1971. This is BMW.

Rolls-Royce Motor Cars Limited was created as a wholly owned subsidiary of BMW AG in 1998, after BMW licensed the rights to the Rolls-Royce name and logo from aerospace company Rolls-Royce Holdings, and acquired the rights to the Spirit of Ecstasy hood ornament and Rolls-Royce grille shape trademarks from Volkswagen. The BMW group has been making Rolls-Royce branded cars since 2003, but this Spectre, a giant four-seater super-coupe, is arguably the best-looking Rolls the company has made since it took over the reigns.

It's also the most aerodynamic for the brand yet, with an impressively low 0.25 drag coefficient, thanks in part to that tapered tail, despite being almost 5.5 meters long and 2 meters wide. The Spectre is also heavy, weighing nearly 3 metric tons with a driver onboard. A thumping 102-kWh battery coupled with two motors offer up 430 kW (584 hp) and 900 Nm of torque, resulting in 0-60 mph in 4.4 seconds. Range is stated as 329 miles on the WLTP standard, with efficiency at 2.6 to 2.8 mi/kWh. Basically, despite the prodigious size and weight, the Spectre is plenty fast enough, but more on this later.

The design itself is very much rooted in the brand history. It looks like a Rolls-Royce, both inside and out. Indeed, only the lack of tailpipes would reveal its EV status. CEO Torsten Müller-Ötvös tells me on the brand-hosted media drive that the Spectre had to be “a Rolls-Royce first, then electric second,” I hear this Spectre mantra more than a few times during the event. Rolls-Royce wisely doesn't want to scare the faithful customer base, which the company insists has an average age of people, mostly men, in their early 40s. Younger than many would expect, but still these are people who can afford the starting price of £330,000 (including taxes) or $420,000 in the US (excluding taxes). After the inevitable personal pimping for individual customers, I doubt the company will sell any at that starting price tag.

Other notable exterior design elements include the grille—the widest ever seen on a Rolls—which is configured to reduce drag rather than cool. That Spirit of Ecstasy mascot has also been redesigned to be ever so slightly more aerodynamic, too. Much was made of this by Rolls-Royce, rightly sensing a juicy tidbit motoring journalists will find hard to ignore. The trouble with these efforts towards incremental aero gains is that it leaves you wondering, if this was so important, why not replace the wing mirrors with new-fangled cameras? Director of design Anders Warming says it was considered, then rejected. He's just not convinced by the tech. “I’ve not seen a good solution yet,” he says. I have to agree.

Inside is a veritable sea of leather and craftsmanship. The deep-pile carpets are better, and deeper, than any boutique hotel you'll ever frequent. The Spectre boasts the brand's “starlight” headlining inside, but now this cascades down to the doors as well. It's bling of a subtle kind, and definitely theatre with 4,800 individual light sources. But considering the playground that LED lighting has given car companies, one wonders if more could have been done with such a system. Rolling night skies or familiar constellations for owners? Customizable patterns?

Rolls-Royce likes to decide what's best for its drivers, though. There's no switchable driving modes beyond the one set by Rolls, for example. You do get one button for turning breaking regen on or off, however, and it allows one-pedal driving, should you feel so inclined. Speaking of switchgear, there are plenty of buttons and dedicated knobs, so fishing about in the UI to locate the wing mirror settings won't be an issue. It's a good thing, too, because Rolls owners don't even want to struggle to open a door—there's a button for that as well.

The stereo, Rolls's own proprietary audio system, is phenomenal. The best I have heard in some years, in fact, with every frequency meticulously attended to. Nothing is lost, with wide soundscapes given space to soar.

But what's this? A digital instrument display has made it into a Rolls-Royce for the first time, and it's the prettiest version I've seen. In fact, I'd go as far as to say “chic.” And although I am pleased Rolls has shunned the kind of ridiculous super-screen setup Mercedes seems to enjoy, there could have been an argument made here for a third screen for the passenger, rather than a panel with the Spectre logo.

Indeed, there are a couple of other minor grumbles. View out the rear window is limited, but you have cameras to compensate. Also, considering the opulence of the interior, it is more than a little jarring to open the central and rear cubby holes to find cheap plastic fuzz lining these storage spaces. It's an odd misstep and serves only to make you wonder if any of the rest of the premium clobber is just skin deep.

Considering this is an EV, with a flat battery in the floor, it's a shame that Rolls-Royce has made the interior architecture so conventional. A “transmission tunnel” runs from front to back, housing, yes, some cells and wiring, but also storage. This is sold as “cocooning the inhabitants in their own spaces.” To me, however, it represents a likely deliberate design choice not to be too daring with remaking what a luxury cabin might be. It's a shame. as I'd have liked to have seen what Warming and Rolls-Royce does when let off the leash.

I also have issues with the navigation. The BMW-borrowed AR satnav comes up on a central screen as you approach a junction or whatever. Instead of relaying live AR directions up on the HUD (like in an Audi, for example), this system asks you to look down at the middle screen to see the guidance overlay on a camera feed. Just like with the BMW, this is precisely the wrong time to ask someone to take their eyes off the road. There are better ways to do this in cars that cost considerably less.

The most important thing about any Rolls-Royce is how it drives, of course. The brand is intent on the Spectre being able to, just like its other models, float you serenely along the road—which it indeed does with aplomb, and, being an EV only make matters easier in this regard.

The company was able to cut a considerable amount of noise-dampening material thanks to the much quieter electric powertrain, and the fact that the battery is a solid barrier between the road and the driver. Rolls says the battery slab alone acts as 700 kg of additional acoustic insulation. However, if you really do miss the engine noise. you can tell the car to pipe in (surprisingly convincing) fake noise, but why on Earth would you do that?

When you have had enough of floating silently along, and you want the Spectre to wake up, jump on the accelerator pedal. Despite its 3 tons, the car leaps forward using BMW's largest motors—so much so that my glasses that were sitting on top of my head flew off behind me (twice). This luxury cruiser might not have the fastest 0-60 time on the EV block (and remember here Rolls-Royce has artificially capped the acceleration), but, trust me, you don't want more than the car's 4.4 seconds, otherwise you're likely to get into a spot of bother.

Why? You might have to stop those 3 tons in a hurry. Don't get me wrong, Rolls-Royce has done a commendable job with the braking, but press hard and you're more than aware of the mass you are bringing very rapidly to a halt.

Driven sportily, the handling again tries ever so hard to hide the car's bulk, and doesn't quite manage it. An active rear axle helps here with stability, of course, but Rolls chose a 12-V system, rather than a stronger 48-V one found in competitors such as Bentley. Rolls’s impressive director of engineering Mihiar Ayoubi tells me this was a deliberate choice, that the 48V option would have been far too rigid for the famous Rolls “magic carpet” ride. He's right there, but I can't help wonder if a more powerful system could not have been modified to behave like a 12-V one in normal conditions then automatically switch to full power when or if required?

The Spectre is not trying to be a sports car, fortunately, but it you treat it like one, diving into fast corners, it doesn't quite convince, even though its new aluminum “spaceframe” chassis coupled with the battery is a third stiffer than in any previous Rolls-Royce. Much better to hold off the heavy foot and drive the EV as intended—calmly, purposefully. You can still do this at speed and enjoy the precise steering and the confident ride.

As for real-world range from that large 102-kWh battery, it's likely just under 300 miles. Over the 147 miles I drove in the Spectre, we went from full to a few notches under 50 percent charge and achieved an efficiency of 2.7 mi/kWh—and this was in perfect weather conditions and over a reasonable mix of twisty and straight roads.

Ayoubi tells me that on seeing the Spectre's specs and experiencing the car itself, the BMW board was shocked—in a good way. To get such performance and such a luxurious experience in Rolls-Royce's first real EV is quite something. Considering the weight, the range is impressive, the acceleration is arresting, the ride is deliciously tranquil—in fact, the DNA of the brand is all there intact, with the new powertrain only enhancing the experience, and in no way betraying those precious luxury values.

But as this is Rolls-Royce's first real EV, if you look hard you can see the small compromises that have been made, and also the ingrained ICE-age thinking that will inevitably take time to dissipate.

For example, the classic ICE car interior architecture is staunchly pre-EV Rolls-Royce. Aside from a digital instrument cluster there is little to distinguish this from a fossil-fuel iteration. Brands such as Hyundai are at least attempting to explore what new EV interiors might look like, and here Rolls-Royce could easily shine.

The charging architecture employed on the Spectre is 400V, not 800V, which is the top standard at the moment. The Porsche Taycan has 800V, even the Kia EV6 has 800V. If you had paid for the best of the best, and parted with more than $400,000 for the privilege, you might well be justifiably aggrieved if the Kia alongside you at the charging station was topped up and off long before your Rolls is brimmed.

Ah, but Rolls-Royce says that doesn't matter with the Spectre, because the average Rolls client has seven cars in their garage, so they'll likely only ever charge this EV at home, overnight. Well, that's one hell of a conceit. It may be accurate, but at this price point you want the best charging architecture even if you only ever have to use it on public stations once in a blue moon. And also, we can't judge the tech onboard here based on what the prospective owner might have in their car collection.

Lastly, and perhaps most strangely considering Rolls-Royce customers traditionally like to be chauffeured, unlike the BMW iX and i7, there is no autonomous driving tech beyond driver assistance systems built into the Spectre. No lidar, so no Level 3 autonomy. On long stretches of freeway, you'll have to drive the Spectre. It can't drive you. This was again, apparently, deliberate. The engineering ethos was “go 40 percent on anything new.” In other words, don't go mad.

Rolls-Royce says it wanted to make an EV that was Rolls-Royce first and electric second. It has done precisely that. It's made an EV that could just as easily be ICE, and the owner might never notice. It's not exactly a daring strategy, but then again it's not Rolls-Royce's job to be daring. But if this if what the company comes up with on its first try at a proper production EV, it's going to be very interesting when Rolls-Royce really leans into this world.