Rolls-Royce’s first electric car is a silent millionaire car

En route by car to a historic meeting with the first electric Rolls-Royce in Bavaria. That milestone in Rolls history is called the Spectre, certainly not after James Bond. Such poor viewing of traditional cinema culture is below the status of an elite brand, although these days it attracts a few practically educated people from footballers to holiday park managers with more polish than the old British money it used to associate with. and Rolls. From the Emirates to Beijing, the nouveau riche easily paid half a million or more for Rolls.

That revenue model came under fire during the energy transition. Only a Rolls plug-in can achieve this beautiful but old-fashioned and rich CO feel₂making the brand smoke proof again. The decision has been made. Rolls-Royce will not launch new cars with a combustion engine and by 2030 all Rolls models must be electric.

Well, you wonder how a four-ton electric Rolls-Royce is going to beat electric transportation to our destination.

My travel car to Germany has all the features of a vintage limousine, from the electrically adjustable seats to the coach and plenty of interior space. You won’t hesitate to seat heads of state and CEOs in the back seats and the seat massage is very good, as if a sad masseuse is patting your back. It drives as quietly as the big BMWs and Mercedes used to. With its power of 286 hp, it was classy.

Not anymore. This is a Volkswagen ID.7, the new model Passat, a large classic VW for more than 60,000 euros. Thanks to silent electricity, middle-class renters are benefiting from peace once reserved for the wealthy. In its silence, comfort and luxury, the mid-range electric car seems to be the nail in the coffin of many top brands in 2024, perhaps even of an untouchable luxury institution like Rolls-Royce.

Poor Rolls Royce. If you’ve spent over a hundred years perfecting the quietest and most refined eight- and twelve-cylinder gasoline engines for the wealthy market, foul-mouthed bully Elon Musk will destroy your untouchability in one fell swoop with silent electric power. . You must come together, there is no escape. The future is electric.

And so, as an elite brand, you suddenly find yourself competing with Teslas and leased VWs, which, after a thousand kilometers of travel, I wonder how much better it can get.

It cannot be parked

Rolls who has to restore his authority to the monkey rock is a disaster. Specter is five and forty-five meters long, half a meter more than ID.7. The rear opening door can be closed electrically from the inside coach doors Their height of 1.50 meters makes the Specter unsuitable for almost any parking lot. With a width of 2.08 meters if you remove the mirrors you cannot enter the parking garage.

Strange. But let the doors close at the push of a button and something amazing happens.

In ordinary cars, even expensive ones, you always hear noise. From the tires, wind noise, mud, snow, pieces of stone and water splashing on the wheel arches. Because electric motors are inaudible, the noise is more noticeable. There is complete peace and quiet in this spacious room. This is the pit of silence.

Only Rolls-Royce can insulate like this. The last Phantom, the top model, was packed with 130 kg of insulation material, even in the tires, with surprising results. The Specter takes up that torch with unparalleled acoustic comfort. And he appreciates you. You get nothing from the asphalt volcanic landscape below you. It flies with incomparable gentleness.

He seems to be able to go fast. There is no challenge. It really doesn’t sound faster than the id.7 and on the Alpine hills where Rolls-Royce lets the press drive, I can’t get above ninety. Overtaking is not polite in a Rolls and you drive slowly almost straight, if only out of respect for oncoming traffic who see it as a big deal taking up the full width of the road. The interior brings you a different, calm rhythm of life.

Except for the very small infotainment screen and digital, but locally designed meters, time seems to stand still here. With a custom-made half-timbered shiny wood and vintage-style chrome pull knobs for the air intake grilles, he brings a slice of warmth. Downton Abbey in the busy life of the rapper Boef or the king of camping Peter Gillis, also lovers.

Behind the Millionaire

What an impossible electrical job it was for a company that only offered big, heavy gifts, convertibles and limousines. What a pain, battery packs weighing hundreds of kilograms that should make a Rolls-worthy range possible. In Rolls you want to blast from Vinkeveen to your resort painlessly and at a good speed. As a customer, you don’t want to have to load your millionaire’s bucket every two hours between Teslas at Fastned.

So the Specter was given a 700 kg 102 kWh battery pack, which brings the total weight of the car to less than three thousand kg, despite the heavy use of aluminum, which is impossible to imagine. You won’t find a heavy passenger car on the Dutch market. With the same consumption of 26 kWh per 100 km, you will never reach the 400 km on the highway that the ID.7 reaches with two fingers on its nose.

Soon Boef will be standing at the toll booth next to a VW with me in it, incomparable humiliation. I would take a butler with me when I travel, who will do the dirty work of packing along the way while you kill lunch time in the star tent. Fortunately, the maid fits perfectly in the spacious back seat.

The final word has yet to be said about his competitive position. You could say that the real Rolls has no competition, just like the real high-end hotels don’t belong in the chain. Judges Rolls by objective criteria. You run it with a unique style and exceptional build quality, with the unabashed beauty that such a British mansion transforms the living environment of happy few conveys. Until now, the new money was happy to pay a high price for it.

The pragmatic flexibility with which the royal brand adapted to its new target groups and bling was pleasing. everywhere. That white leather, those opulent materials inside and out, can be ordered in all the colors your heart desires; the Rolls’ starry sky with thousands of bulbs on the roof and, also for a generous extra charge, now also on the doors, a low-light and classic grille; it’s a dreamland in the sky of a movie star, pre-war luxury.

For a fee, Rolls-Royce will fulfill your highest wishes. My test car is pink, of course – but storm gray, just like in the picture, is also possible. A knee-jerk still squirms about the too-short seatbacks and the wireless phone charger awkwardly hidden in the center of the armrest. There is only one of your Rolls, completely pimped to your own taste.

The main question

On the other hand, a little bit can’t hurt. The objective question remains to what extent you should rank the Specter above the best EVs, for example the ID.7. For the price of one Spectre, depending on the number of extras chosen, you have six to seven ID.7s, each of which meets the standards you used to put on the Rolls. Is Specter six to seven times better?

If you don’t care about prestige: no. But in fact the Rolls driver did it every time. And apparently the new guard of wealthy buyers too. The Specter attracts many new customers. Don’t think that only fossil stars and fallen campers buy Rolls-Royces. The young guard is eager; 40% of Specter buyers are new and with an average age of 43, today’s Rolls driver is very young. Henceforth it has a sustainable alibi for waste; First rolls don’t have to be embarrassing.

Can Specter cash in on its isolation? On the aura. Electric or not, you buy a car like this to spend tons of money. That’s impossible for VWs, that’s ridiculous.

Fortunately: on the way back to Holland, after acoustic nirvana in the Rolls, I find a Visible Difference. In the early eighties VW I hear winter tires squealing, wind noise around the mirrors that was absent in the Spectre. I realize that it is a storm and not just a little one. The wind whips the sides like an electronic VW knife on my back. I really didn’t notice any of that in Spectre. It glided steadily and silently through the winter paradise of the Alps. Mind blow. So it’s still a miracle.

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