- Rolls-Royce debuts Spectre, the marque’s first fully-electric motor car
- Spectre is a prophecy fulfilled, a promise kept and an undertaking completed
- Spectre “demonstrates how perfectly Rolls-Royce is suited to electrification”
- Spectre heralds the beginning of all-electric era for Rolls-Royce Motor Cars
- Built on the Rolls-Royce all-aluminium Architecture of Luxury
- Spectre uses new SPIRIT software architecture with full Whispers integration
- World’s first Ultra-Luxury Electric Super Coupé is spiritual successor to Phantom Coupé
- First customer cars to be delivered in the fourth quarter of 2023
In 1900, Rolls-Royce co-founder, Charles Rolls, prophesised an electric future for the motor car. Having acquired an electric vehicle named The Columbia Electric Carriage, he foresaw its suitability as a clean, noiseless alternative to the internal combustion engine – providing there was sufficient infrastructure to support it. Today, more than 120 years later, the time has come for Rolls-Royce Motor Cars to fulfil the prophecy of its founding father.
To ensure that this transformative motor car was sufficiently prepared for the most demanding consumer in the world – the Rolls-Royce client – the marque devised the most exhaustive testing program it had ever conceived. Spectre is being subjected to a journey of more than 2.5 million kilometres, simulating more than 400 years of use for a Rolls-Royce.
Spectre is not only an historic moment for Rolls-Royce, but also an historic moment for electrification – with Spectre, the marque confirms that the technology has reached a standard that can contain the Rolls-Royce experience. To that end, Rolls-Royce has confirmed that by the end of 2030 its entire product portfolio will be fully-electric.
DESIGN
In unveiling Spectre, Rolls-Royce sets a new precedent in the creation of an entirely original class of motor car: the Ultra-Luxury Electric Super Coupé. This designation refers to Spectre’s indulgent proportions, specified in response to a commitment that there is no greater luxury than that of space.
From the front, Spectre’s split headlight treatment is intersected by the widest grille ever bestowed on a Rolls-Royce. The vanes of the Pantheon grille are now smoother in section and a flusher fit, designed to help guide the air around the motor car’s front.
The relaxed angle and polished stainless steel finish of the grille does much to enhance Spectre’s presence using environmental reflection. Along with an aero-tuned Spirit of Ecstasy figurine – itself the product of 830 combined hours of design modelling and wind tunnel testing – the grille enhances the motor car’s unprecedented drag coefficient, which at just 0.25cd makes Spectre Rolls-Royce’s most aerodynamic motor car, ever.
This intelligent treatment has been married to the iconography of Spectre’s spiritual predecessor, the Phantom Coupé. Spectre clearly acknowledges its forebear with its generous proportions and split headlight treatment – a contemporary Rolls-Royce design tenet. Spectre’s sharp daylight running lights emphasise the motor car’s imperious two-metre width and are offset with lower lamp clusters that appear darkened, at first glance, but hide jewellery box-like darkened chromium housings for the headlights. To affirm Spectre’s expression after dark, the grille is softly illuminated, with 22 LEDs lighting up the sandblasted rear side of each of the vanes, their gentle glow reflected in the polished front surfaces for a subtle and three-dimensional night signature.
The silhouette’s most dramatic feature is Spectre’s fastback, which recalls the most evocative motor cars and watercraft in history. The seamlessness of the greenhouse surfacing significantly contributes to achieving the lowest drag coefficient ever for a Rolls-Royce. Following the roofline back, the tail lamps are set into the largest single body panel ever produced for a Rolls-Royce, which extends from the A-pillar to the luggage compartment. The jewel-like vertical tail lamps themselves are colourless for neutrality, in anticipation of the myriad of colourways selected by clients during the commissioning process. Their precision and reduced dimension complement the generous flow of the bodywork from the muscular shoulders backwards into the tail section with its characteristic tapering plan view.
The proportional demands of Spectre’s scale required Rolls-Royce to embolden its wheel strategy. Spectre is the first production two-door coupé to be equipped with 23-inch wheels in almost one hundred years.
Inside, Spectre is provisioned with the most technologically advanced Bespoke features yet, drawing inspiration from the timeless mystique of the night’s sky. For the first time on a series production Rolls-Royce, Spectre is available with Starlight Doors, which incorporate 4,796 softly illuminated ‘stars’. The coach doors can also be commissioned with a backdrop of wood Canadel Panelling, which takes its name from the cove in the South of France where Sir Henry Royce and his design team spent their winters.
The ethereal night-time theme continues with Spectre’s Illuminated Fascia. Developed over the course of two years and more than 10,000 collective hours, it incorporates the Spectre nameplate surrounded by a cluster of over 5,500 stars. Located on the passenger side of the dashboard, the illuminations are completely invisible when the motor car is not in operation.
Alongside the extraordinary, illuminated surfaces, Spectre is equipped with a completely redesigned digital architecture of luxury named SPIRIT, presented in quintessential Rolls-Royce style. Not only will SPIRIT manage the motor car’s functions, but it is seamlessly integrated into the marque’s Whispers application, allowing clients to interact with their car remotely, and receive live information curated by the marque’s luxury intelligence specialists.
As with all Rolls-Royce motor cars, Spectre’s interior suite offers clients near-infinite Bespoke possibilities. The all-new front seat design has been inspired by British tailoring, with lapel sections that can be rendered in contrasting or matching colours to the main base. Bespoke stitching, embroidery and intricate piping has, as ever, been considered in their inception.
PLANAR SUSPENSION
In testing Spectre, the process includes extreme driving conditions – development of the motor car began just 55km from the arctic circle in Arjeplog, Sweden, at temperatures as low as -40 degrees centigrade, and it will continue across Southern Africa, in temperatures of up to 55 degrees centigrade. Yet, 55% of testing is taking place on the very roads that many production Spectres will be driven on. Of particular significance was the French Riviera. It was on the Côte d’Azur that Spectre’s digitally integrated evolution of the renowned Planar suspension system was finalised.
Planar suspension is an orchestra of systems with precisely defined responses to driver inputs and road conditions, made possible by the latest software and hardware developments, delivering Rolls-Royce’s hallmark ‘magic carpet ride’.
Using a suite of new hardware components and leveraging Spectre’s high-speed processing capabilities, the Planar system can decouple the car’s anti-roll bars allowing each wheel to act independently, preventing the rocking motion that occurs when one side of a vehicle hits an undulation in the road. This also reduces high-frequency ride imperfections caused by shortcomings in road surface quality.
Once a corner is identified as imminent, the Planar system recouples the components and stiffens the dampers, the four-wheel steering system is then prepared for activation to ensure effortless entry and exit. Under cornering, 18 sensors are monitored, and steering, braking, power delivery and suspension parameters are adjusted so that Spectre remains stable. The result is effortless control.
POWER AND RANGE
The final power, acceleration and range figures are still being refined, as the extraordinary undertaking of finessing Spectre enters its final phase before concluding in the second quarter of 2023. Preliminary data shows that Spectre is expected to have an all-electric range of 320 miles/520 kilometres WLTP and offer 900Nm of torque from its 430kW powertrain. It is anticipated to achieve 0-60mph in 4.4 seconds (0-100km/h in 4.5 seconds).