Rolls-Royce goes electric with new 585PS Spectre EV

Yet as is appropriate, you wouldn’t know the Spectre's change of heart by looking at it. It is as any Rolls-Royce should be, timeless and unbeholden in its style to trivial things such as what powers it. It’s simply, a Rolls-Royce. That means the sloping yacht-like coupe roof and shoulder line of the Wraith live on, as does the grand posterior and imposing nose. The lights are smaller and a touch more technical at the rear and there are no exhausts. Instead, a single elegant strip of brightwork runs the width of the car at the bottom.

At the front, what does make the BMW family relation slightly more obvious is the lighting, with LED day running strips sitting above independent main light units, very similar to the BMW X7 and i7. The Pantheon grille is however still very ‘Rolls-Royce’, albeit refined, with the silverware sitting wider and shorter than ever before, with smoother flusher-fitting vanes for smoother airflow. It’s also softly lit, with 22 LED’s illuminating the rear side of each of the vanes.

Aerodynamics have been a key consideration in the design of the Spectre, as is essential in EVs, with the grille, spirit of ecstasy, wheels and overall shape deferring at least in part to the decrees of the wind tunnel technicians. The result is a truly impressive 0.25 coefficient of drag. For context, the dart-nosed 240mph McLaren F1’s CD is 0.32.

Of course, the most important part of any Rolls-Royce is the cabin and you’ll be unsurprised to read, the Spectre’s is as magnificent as any other, with little deference to prevailing trends or conventions. It is simply Rolls-Royce – a grand dashboard, with elegant brightwork, minimal controls and seamlessly-integrated digital interfaces. It's a sea of sumptuous leather, among other luxury materials, and thick carpeting. In truth, it’s very similar to the cabin of the new Ghost and Phantom, which shouldn’t come as a shock.

There are new seats, which take inspiration from British tailoring, featuring lapel sections adding to the customisability, available in different materials, trims and colours. New for the Spectre, too, is customisation that goes into the digital realm, with the colours of the dials now able to reflect the custom colours of the interior and exterior. New also is the option of ‘starlight’ doors and dash design, adding to the long-serving starlight headliner in the cabin’s elegant light show. The Spectre is also more digital than ever, with an architecture Rolls-Royce is calling ‘Spirit’. With the ‘Whispers’ app you can control various functions of your Spectre and view information, including charging and interior climate.

So what exactly powers the Spectre? Rolls-Royce hasn’t said, though we expect a twin-motor setup and 100kWh-plus battery similar to that of the closely related BMW i7 xDrive60. While that car makes do with 543PS (400kW) and 745Nm (551lb ft), the Spectre gets a bump to 584PS (430kW) and 900Nm (666lb ft). Though numbers are yet to be finalised, preliminary data is suggesting a range of 320 miles on a charge. Normally one would consider performance numbers crude for a Rolls-Royce but in the case of the Spectre, they’ve given a 4.5-second 0-62mph time.

The aluminium structure isn’t all-new, though has undergone significant modifications in the transformation from ICE to all-electric power. New extruded aluminium elements in combination with the integration of the battery into the structure has yielded a 30 per cent bump in stiffness. The official weight of the Spectre is a fairly hefty 2,975kg at the kerb, of which around 700kg is the battery. Never the last bastion of lightweight engineering, it’s not such an issue in a Rolls-Royce, especially given the battery also doubles as sound-deadening.

Rolls-Royce has developed the sophisticated Planar suspension over 2.5 million kilometres of testing in all climates around the world, to maintain the ‘magic carpet’ ride. The system can anticipate changes in the road surface ahead and adjust accordingly. It’ll even go as far as letting the anti-roll bars decouple to let the wheels act independently and thus reduce rocking over uneven surfaces. Then, when it sees a corner, the anti-roll bars recouple, the dampers stiffen and the four-wheel-steering kicks in, for as elegant and agile a response as possible.

In spite of the very Wraith-like appearance, Rolls-Royce is calling the Spectre a successor to the Phantom Coupe, which at the very least is reflected in the new split lighting up front. The Spectre is available to order now with deliveries expected to begin at the end of next year. Pricing should be between the Cullinan and Phantom, implying a starting price of around £310,000.