Lifestyle

Test Driving the Electric Rolls-Royce Spectre: How We Roll

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2m ago

Sep 02, 2024 / 3357 Views

Evan Walker

Or at least it’s how we’d like to. At long last, Rolls-Royce’s first electric car, the Spectre, has made it on to Asia’s roads, so naturally Prestige was among the first to drive it.

After teasing us as long ago as 2011 with the notion that a fully electric Rolls-Royce was on the cards, then reinforcing that message five years later by pulling the wraps off the futuristic autonomously driven 103 EX design exercise, the luxury Anglo-German motor manufacturer eventually revealed to the world its first-ever battery-powered production car early in 2023. And despite being dubbed Spectre, a name freighted with all manner of nefarious Bondian connotations, the two-door, four-seat coupe turned out to be neither ghostly nor sinister. On the contrary, it’s dramatic and in some ways rather beautiful – and at almost 5.5 metres long and more than 2.9 tonnes in weight, it’s also absolutely enormous. Indeed, with its Parthenon-inspired front grille, sweeping fastback roofline and unmistakeably aristocratic countenance, it’s one of the most distinctive automobiles on the road.

If we leave aside for one moment the radical substitution in motive power, in many ways the Spectre is the archetypal Rolls-Royce. It’s massive, fabulously luxurious in every way imaginable (and some ways possibly not), utterly smooth to drive and ride in, pin-drop silent and likely to be so personalised by their owners that no two cars will ever be identical – most of which I find out when at long last I have the opportunity to get behind the wheel of one of the first right-hand-drive examples to make its way to Asia.

At almost 5.5 metres long, the Spectre is gigantic

But electric power does happen to be the story here – and though for a manufacturer of Rolls-Royce’s stature the move wasn’t taken lightly, it could hardly have worked out better. True, the Spectre’s two electric motors – the bigger one is in the back and the smaller at the front – lack the sheer majesty of a 6.6-litre V12 engine, but in terms of horsepower, torque, and the quiet and effortless delivery of both, the battery alternative performs easily as well as a more conventional powertrain. No, make that even better. Moreover, as the Architecture of Luxury spaceframe that’s underpinned all Rollers since its introduction 10 years ago was designed from the outset to accommodate both modes of propulsion, the switch to electricity was relatively simple.

Together with the Spectre’s hefty 102kW battery, which occupies most of the area beneath the cabin floor, its twin motors provide an instantaneous kick of up to 577bhp and 900Nm, figures that are roughly analogous to those for current Petrol-powered Rolls-Royces, and good enough for a 0-100km/h sprint in around 4.5 seconds and a maximum of 250 (and remember that with four passengers and their luggage on board, the car will be tipping the scales at well over 3 tonnes). Certainly there are faster automobiles on the road, including several powered by electricity, but ultimate alacrity has never been the aim of any machine whose bonnet bears the Spirit of Ecstasy ornament. With an effect that’s more sustained scirocco than category-five hurricane, the power piles on relentlessly whenever the accelerator is pressed towards the carPet, and there’s little evident drop off even as the speed heads deep into triple-digits territory.

As with almost all other EVs, the Spectre has a single-speed gearbox, which dispenses with the need for the satnav-aided transmission fitted to every other recent Roller. And with choice evidently being something for the plebs – a drive-mode menu; what on earth is that? – you simply either select forward or reverse and go, though there is a “B” setting on the steering-column wand that serves much the same purpose as the “low” ratio on Petrol-powered models (as well as regenerating the battery it facilitates brakeless one-pedal driving, which is useful when guiding this behemoth down a steep and winding slope). Yet so ingeniously have the engineers replicated the feel of a “regular” Rolls-Royce – if indeed such a creature can be said to exist – that when driving the Spectre you often find yourself forgetting you’re in an electric car at all.

Relax in rarefied tranquillity beneath the stars on the Rolls-Royce Spectre

Likewise, it’s astonishingly wieldy for such a huge machine. Although there is some body roll, it’s nicely controlled by the active anti-roll bars, and thanks to the well-calibrated traction and stability controls, cornering is also fluid and drama-free – unless, of course, you’re really going for it, which in a Rolls-Royce you shouldn’t
be anyway. Four-wheel steering, which gives the impression that at least a metre has been lopped off the car’s length, ensures not only a surprising degree of agility but equally remarkable low-speed manoeuvrability, though there are only so many parking spots a 5.5-metre-long vehicle can realistically be shoehorned into.

What you really want to know about, though, are exclusivity, luxury and refinement, those three areas in which Rollers are expected to excel – and all of which, unsurprisingly, the Spectre nails to perfection. Depending on how the light falls, my test car’s lustrous lower-body paint, which I think is called Chartreuse, seems to vary between bronze, brown and green, while swinging open the vast rear-hinged coach doors reveals a cabin whose surfaces are swathed in the hides of several pampered but ultimately unfortunate bovines – leather in shades of mustard, cream and pink that’s so smooth, supple, flawless and aromatic you almost want to pick up a knife and fork and tuck in. (And to be strictly accurate, no one “swings” the Spectre’s doors open or closed; instead, they gently motor their way out from the body, activated either by the touch of a button or simply pressing the footbrake.)

No surprise either that the interior build quality and materials are beyond outstanding – or that the chairs are so voluminous, perfectly sculpted for the human form and ridiculously comfortable that it’s a real effort to vacate them, not least because there’s a good chance you’ve nodded off. Passengers in the back have their own seat and climate controls – and, unless giant-sized (the sloping roofline does restrict head room), plenty of space too – though the absence of rear doors does necessitate a few mild contortions when getting in or out. It may not be the full-fat limousine experience if you’re seated behind, but it’s certainly not far off.

Rear flap hides a charging point, not the filler cap

Optional 23-inch wheel detail — Rear flap hides a charging point, not the filler cap

Nor have the cabin designers gone overboard with tech as they did with the Spectre’s distant relative, the BMW i7. Although the displays are digital, there’s mercifully no cinema screen or multicoloured Star Wars effects to spoil the ambience of restrained opulence, while the air vents and switchgear, much of which is hewn from solid metal, operate analogue-style, just as they always have done in Rolls-Royces. If you were looking for a thoroughly grown-up marriage of the contemporary and traditional, you’ve found it.

Riding on 22-inch – or, as on the test car, 23-inch – wheels fitted with noise-cancelling tyres, and further cossetted by active air suspension, passengers are pretty much cocooned from anything likely to disturb their splendid isolation, unless the road surfaces are particularly brutal. And as every possible body cavity is packed with sound-deadening materials, with even the underfloor battery acting as an barrier to unwanted noises, much the same goes for sonic intrusions. If there is anything spooky about the Spectre, it’s the silence.

Rolls-Royces have always been said to “waft”, but the Spectre elevates that to the next level, gliding you around in a state of such rarefied tranquillity you’d be forgiven for thinking you were floating on air. And though I’m sad there’s no magnificent V12 lurking beneath a bonnet that seems to stretch out to eternity, I can’t honestly say that the switch to electricity doesn’t suit the Spectre. Because it does, brilliantly.

So how to justify such automotive extravagance? To claim it’s some supersized eco-warrior or even the future of mobility will get you laughed out of the room. But as the way forward for a brand that knows few limits and is still acknowledged as building “the best car in the world”, the Spectre makes perfect sense.