The World is Not Enough For The Rolls Royce Spectre

The world is not enough for the Rolls Royce Spectre or really there are more than enough people rich enough to afford the company’s first-ever, BMW-approved, all-electric car. The Rolls Royce Spectre signals a break from tradition yet it remains very much traditional. Rolls Royce has opted not to go for an aerodynamic profile despite trying to convince those who are weak-minded enough to believe PR BS. In this case, traditional values win. Because the Spectre looks familiar it keeps to the company’s current design language. One knows instantly that this electric car is a Rolls Royce. Rolls Royce PR reminded the motoring world that the company had electric car ambitions from the very beginning. It’s taken them over 120 years and BMW investment, but it’s better late than never.

Let’s just ignore the fact that Rolls Royce along with the entire car industry has been mandated to make the switch to electric propulsion or face severe penalties by EU regulators. Left to their own devices, Rolls Royce would have been exclaiming the virtues of their BMW V12 powerplant well into the next century and beyond. They are now saying the V12 is smelly, dirty, and harsh compared to electric powertrains. How the mighty fall to the whims of progress.

For Rolls Royce, the Spectre creates an entirely original class of motor car: the Ultra-Luxury Electric Super Coupé. The vanes of the Pantheon grille are now smoother in section and have a flusher fit, designed to help guide the air around the motor car’s front. The Spirit of Ecstasy figurine underwent 830 combined hours of design modeling and wind tunnel testing.

Rolls Royce has yet to reveal the full specification because BMW is telling them not to. We do know that the Spectre will finally ditch its BMW 7 Series donor chassis and be built around a state-of-the-art aluminum spaceframe structure. The Spaceframe will integrate the battery and combine to yield 30 percent more stiffness.

It is speculated that the Spectre will feature dual electric motors and power will be supplied by a 100 kWh battery pack. The whole car is reputed to weigh around 2,975kg with the batteries making up 1,543kg of the total weight. Estimates suggest the Spectre can manage around 320miles of range.

Power is reputed to be around 600bhp and 664lb-ft with a 0-62mph time in the region of 4.5 seconds. But it’s all speculation, for now, Rolls Royce intends to drag out the PR value for all that it can until the Spectre goes on sale in 2023. What we do know for certain is that the Spectre will do traditional modern ultra-luxury interiors with cosseting drive like no other car manufacturer can.