Smooth, quiet electric motors will only make Rolls-Royce cars better.
Drive a modern Rolls-Royce and it's hard to resist the opulence. High-pile lambswool rugs. A rear seat that hides its occupants from prying eyes. A headliner with thousands of LED stars that twinkle at night. But it's also hard to avoid thinking that even with a powerful 6.75-litre V12 under the hood, there's a better alternative.
Rolls-Royce sees it that way too. That's why on Tuesday it unveiled the Specter, a new solid-head electric coupe that will hit its first well-heeled buyers in late 2023. It's the brand's first battery-electric vehicle, but it won't be the last - its full lineup will be EV-only by 2030.
Well, to save yourself the annoyance of the traditionalists, consider this quote: “The electric car is completely silent and clean. There is no smell or vibration. They should become very useful when fixed charging stations can be set up.” No, not a post from one of the many Ars comment threads on electric vehicles, but Charles Stewart Rolls, one of the two eponymous founders of the company, speaking in 1900.
Rolls-Royce still feels the same 121 years later; When Ars spoke to Ghost chief engineer Jonathan Simm in 2021, he told me, “It's very simple because electrification fits perfectly with our brand values. As you say, it's quiet, it has instant torque, our cars are often driven at lower speeds - it fits perfectly.
Conceived as a successor to the Phantom coupe, the Specter will be priced between the $348,500 Cullinan SUV and the $460,000 Phantom sedan. The shape is instantly recognizable as a Rolls-Royce and Rolls-Royce only, with a large Pantheon grille at the front topped by the Spirit of Ecstasy, although both the grille and sculpt have been aero-optimized for the Specter.
Expect a big car - at 5,453 mm (215 in) long and 2,080 mm (82 in) wide, it has a larger footprint than a Cadillac Escalade. Not surprisingly, it also weighs more than an Escalade, at 6,559 lbs (2,975 kg) curb weight. It could be worse; Rolls-Royce now features a new aluminum spaceframe architecture that is extremely stiff but lighter than a traditional steel monocoque chassis.
The battery pack lives between the axles, but Rolls-Royce remains coy about powertrain specs for now, aside from the fact that the Specter will have 577 hp (430 kW) and 664 lb-ft (900 Nm), with one of the EPA estimated range coverage is around 260 miles (418 km) on 23-inch wheels and a 0-60 mph time in 4.4 seconds (0-100 km/h in 4.5 seconds). While the range may seem short to some, the vast majority of Rolls-Royce's spend their time cruising around town.
The company is a bit more accommodating about the Specter's "planar" suspension, which can decouple its front and rear anti-roll bars, allowing each wheel to react independently to things like potholes. So when a wheel hits a bump or hole, it doesn't cause the car to rock sideways. When the car senses a corner is coming - Rolls-Royce powertrains have known the location for a number of years - it reconnects the anti-roll bars and stiffens the dampers to maintain the magic carpet ride.
Otherwise, the Specter looks like it follows Rolls-Royce's tried-and-true formula for handcrafted luxury interiors to a small degree. And now you can even have Starlight doors to match the Starlight roof - this adds an extra 4,796 stars to the door cards, although as this is a Rolls-Royce the bespoke service will likely craft any type of interior that you want right price.
