The Spectre's massive Pantheon Grille is something to behold in the metal. (Image: Stephen Corby)
The only weak point is the rear, which had to be sheer for aero reasons. (Image: Stephen Corby)
The Spectre features the narrowest legally possible rear lights. (Image: Stephen Corby)
The sense of space for the driver and front passenger is suitably grand. (Image: Stephen Corby)
The Spectre gets a modern fully digital dash. (Image: Stephen Corby)
The Spectre has a boot capacity of 380 litres. (Image: Stephen Corby)
Likes
Design Power delivery Interior quality
Dislikes
Rear end design too plain Obscenely heavy Too expensive
Ask any opinionated car enthusiast why it is that they hate electric cars, and you’re going to hear the same word revving them up – “noise”.
Sure, EVs might be fast, and even the most old-world-loving petrol head (are we going to have to come up with a new term, soon? Power crazed? Amp-head? Copper top?) will grant you that they can be fun to drive, but the argument is that you just can’t love a car as much if it doesn’t make shouty sounds.
But there is one bunch of well-heeled car lovers who will demur on this topic, and for whom the idea of switching a big, stupidly powerful V12 engine for whispering electric motors seems to be no issue at all – Rolls-Royce fans.
They have, allegedly, been knocking down the doors at Goodwood, demanding that Rolls build them an EV, and finally it has arrived, in the stunning shape of the Spectre, and the orders are pouring in.
We flew to the Napa Valley in California to try it out.
Price Guide
$770,000
Based on new car retail price
This price is subject to change closer to release data
Price and features – Does it represent good value for the price? What features does it come with?
Australian pricing for the Rolls-Royce Spectre starts from $770,000 before on-road costs, and on the point of whether that represents value, well not to me, but certainly the huge number of orders Rolls claims to have been hit by suggests otherwise.
You do get a lot of car for your money, because the Spectre is vast and weighs almost three tonnes, and there’s no doubt that the interior is nicer than most people’s houses, or even the nicest hotel you’ve ever seen, and that the top-notch umbrellas hidden in each door are a nice touch.
One of the nifty and unexpected features the Spectre offers is a “Rolls-Royce Sound”, which you can toggle on and off. With the fake noise off, the car is freakishly quiet – apparently during testing they achieved a level of EV silence so incredible that people found it “disturbing” and had to engineer some sound back in – but with it on you get just the most subtle of guttural sounds. Every other company so far has gotten fake noise wrong, but Rolls has nailed it with the Spectre; it’s just loud enough, but suitably restrained as well.
You also get the wondrous Starlight Headliner, which uses optic fibre cables to paint the night sky on the roof, complete with shooting stars, and in the Spectre you can now have the stars fitted to the inside of its massive coach doors as well.
Design – Is there anything interesting about its design?
Making a vehicle as enormous as the Spectre look good is no mean feat, but Rolls has done a hell of a job, from most angles. The massive Pantheon Grille is something to behold in the metal, and because it doesn’t need to let air into an engine bay, it’s been designed for airflow, as has so much else. Rolls achieved a drag coefficient of 0.25, which is good for extending EV range, and they even spent more than 800 hours in a wind tunnel working on making the Spirt of Ecstasy hood ornament as aerodynamic as possible (she’s had her wings clipped, apparently).
The modern take on the classic grille combined with a chesty bonnet and very cool DRLs give the Spectre a look of classic modernity from the front, while the proportions over all give it a great side profile.
The Spectre's massive Pantheon Grille is something to behold in the metal. (Image: Stephen Corby)
The only weak point is the rear, which had to be sheer for aero reasons. (Image: Stephen Corby)
The Spectre features the narrowest legally possible rear lights. (Image: Stephen Corby)
Apparently the design brief was based on some majestic cliffs, the Seven Sisters of Sussex, and the car definitely has that level of grandiosity.
The only weak point is the rear, which had to be sheer for aero reasons – and features the narrowest legally possible rear lights, which are supposed to look like “islands in a lake”, apparently. To me, driving behind one, the rear view is just a little dull.
The luscious interior is meant to be an example of “Automotive Haute Couture”, meaning hand made and stupidly expensive, and Rolls also humbly refers to it as a “cosseting art lounge”. It all sounds a bit over the top until you sit in it, and discover that it really does feel beyond special.
Practicality – How practical is its space and tech inside?
If you’re looking for the modern EV style interior, you can forget it, because Rolls says it didn’t want “any of that funky stuff” in the Spectre, so no giant screens in here. Indeed, I switched into a Rolls-Royce Ghost at one stage to be driven somewhere and the interior was almost exactly the same, although the new car gets a more modern fully digital dash.
There’s plenty of room for water bottles and oddment storage and the sense of space for the driver and front passenger is suitably grand, but the rear seats are really for spoilt teenagers rather than Rolls owners. They’re not uncomfortable, at all, but they just feel a bit squeezed, you wouldn’t ask to be chauffeured in a Spectre, clearly it’s a Rolls you’d choose to drive yourself.
The boot is wide, deep and long with a volume of 380 litres.
The sense of space for the driver and front passenger is suitably grand. (Image: Stephen Corby)
The Spectre gets a modern fully digital dash. (Image: Stephen Corby)
The Spectre has a boot capacity of 380 litres. (Image: Stephen Corby)
Under the bonnet – What are the key stats for its motor?
For the first time ever, this Rolls-Royce has no magnificent engine, no throbbing 12 cylinders, no, it has two separately excited synchronous motors, one on each axle for seamless all-wheel drive. The front motor makes 190kW and 365Nm while they’ve sensibly sent more grunt to the rear, which gets 360kW and 710Nm. Either motor on its own would be enough to power a normal car. The total figures are 430kW and 900Nm, which is supercar like.
The battery is made up 804 cells, weighs 700kg and has a net capacity of 102kWh, and the designers used it as a sound-deadening agent for road noise, because it’s so massive.
The Spectre can hit 100km/h in 4.5 seconds, which feels very fast indeed when you’re piloting something that weighs 2890kg and is 5.5m long.
Efficiency – What is its driving range? What is its charging time?
The Spectre is rated at 520km on the WLTP scale, but Rolls claims it can do a lot better (like 600km). Efficiency is claimed to be 21.5kWh per 100km.
We drove 210km and had 300km of indicated range left at the end, which is pretty close to the claim.
The Spectre can be charged at up to 200kW on a DC fast charger, on which it will take 35 minutes to go from 10 to 80 per cent charge.
On an 11kWh home system it will take 10 hours and 45 minutes to go from zero to 90 per cent charge.
Driving – What’s it like to drive?
The short answer to this question is that the Spectre drives just like a Rolls-Royce, but that answer is deceptively simple, because, for an electric vehicle, that’s actually a hell of an achievement.
Most EVs do not feel like cars to drive – the electric Hyundai Kona is not much like a petrol one at all – but what Rolls set out to do with its first EV was to make a vehicle that feels, handles and accelerates just like one of its famous and fabulously over-powered combustion-engined Ghosts, Phantoms or Wraiths.
This meant it had to be “Silent”, which it nails with ease – and the important thing to remember here is that even its V12 cars were always incredibly quiet, unless you really misbehaved. And it had to be “Effortless”, another brand pillar. Again, nailed it, because a Roller has never bothered with things like shift paddles, Sports modes or even the option to do anything but stick it in D for Drive and go.
The sensation Rolls owners demand is endless, otiose acceleration, particularly off the line, and the Spectre delivers this in a typical EV fashion, but also one that’s very familiar to anyone who’s driven a Ghost, for example. It’s just a sense of overwhelming, prole-crushing progress, and it’s magnificent.
The third and final brand pillar is “Waftability” and despite all the weight that it’s carrying (imagine how far over three tonnes this thing would have gone if they didn’t build their cars out of aluminium), the Spectre rides with a kind of hovercraft air of being just above, or barely in touch with, the ground. Bumps are no longer your concern, sir.
As mentioned, Rolls could have chosen a limousine-style vehicle as its first EV, but it has made a driver’s car instead – no CEO will sit in the back of a coupe like the Spectre. So it had to deliver when it comes to being fun, or at least a little frisky at times, when driven.
Again, quite incredibly, despite its mass and weight, it does reward enthusiastic driving and can carve up even relatively narrow winding roads with aplomb, displaying very little body roll or pitching. The steering is almost absurdly light – because it must be “effortless” – but there’s still enough feedback to keep you interested.
Most of the time, of course, the essentially laid back aura of being in a Rolls-Royce will seep into your body and brain and you will simply cruise along, patting yourself on the back for being so rich and clever.
And now, with an EV option finally available, you can tell yourself you’re saving the planet as well (as long as you don’t think about the 28 other cars in your garage).
Safety – What safety equipment is fitted? What is its safety rating?
The Spectre has not been crash tested for ANCAP. Its safety offerings include adaptive cruise control, lane-change assist, lane departure with active steer, a reversing assistant – “to support with parking and long reverses, eg country lanes or driveways, Spectre will reverse the previous 200m driven” – and collision warning with active braking.
Rolls tell us the Spectre has “Four airbags (does not need more)”. So that’s good news.
Ownership – What warranty is offered? What are its service intervals? What are its running costs?
Now, I would assume you’d get a lifetime warranty at Rolls prices, but apparently you get only four years, but it is unlimited mileage.
The Spectre’s battery is covered by a 10-year warranty.
An extended service and warranty package is “TBC”.
Rolls also offers 24/7 roadside assistance, and if your battery goes flat the company will take your Spectre to the nearest charging station.
A “regional flying doctor” is on standby 24/7 in extreme cases if Spectre “fails to proceed”.
Keyword: Rolls-Royce Spectre 2024 review