Video: 2024 Rolls-Royce Spectre: Electric Luxury Doesn’t Get any Better Than This

Now what am I talking about? Well, electric vehicles tend to be a lot more expensive than conventional gas vehicles. Well, solar Rolls-Royces electric vehicles tend to be a lot heavier than normal gas cars so are Rolls-Royces and EVs tend to be a lot quieter than most conventional gas cars, and so are Rolls-Royces. So it kind of sounds to me like a Rolls-Royce might just be the ultimate electric car. Well, that's certainly what the brand thought and that's why they've created this. This is the new 2024 Rolls-Royce Spectre. It's the first ever all-electric Rolls-Royce and the brand is introducing this thing on its way to being an all-electric brand by 2030. Now, all those weird quirks to make electric vehicles strange do make Rolls-Royces fantastic. And let me tell you this thing is the actual embodiment of that. (upbeat music) So what is this thing exactly? Well, this is a two-door personal luxury coupe based on what Rolls-Royce calls the architecture of luxury. It's a specific platform designed by BMW but all aluminum, so it's not just a re-bodied seven series as a lot of people will say. It is something very specific for Rolls-Royce. It's meant to replace the Wraith two door and the Dawn convertible but it's not really a direct replacement. It's actually significantly bigger than the Wraith so it's more of a replacement for the old Phantom Coupe that we last saw in 2016. You can fit four full-sized people in this two door which is not really something you could do in a Wraith. From a styling standpoint, it is very obvious that this is a Rolls-Royce from looking at it. The company had the opportunity given that this is an electric car to completely rethink their whole styling of the thing but they're gonna stick with what's working for them in their mission to create this young hip modern luxury brand. I'm sorry, did you think that Rolls-Royce was an old man's car or something? I'll have you know that the average age of a Rolls-Royce buyer is 43 years old. It has the youngest average buyer of any brand in the BMW group. They have younger buyers than many at Rolls-Royce which is kind of astonishing but from the actual styling standpoint obviously it looks like a Rolls-Royce and it starts with this up here, the grill. Now why does electric car even need a grill? Well, it doesn't, but a Rolls-Royce needs a grill and this is the latest interpretation of their big modern radiator cooling kind of thing. You still also have the spirit of ecstasy. She's not going anywhere unless she push the button and she retracts down into the hood. But it is important to have this hood ornament here because all Rolls-Royces have this. She no longer sits atop the actual grill. She does sit in this beautiful lake of paint, as they call it. This one is a two-tone look of black diamond metallic over imperial jade. All Rolls-Royces are meant to look good in two-tone paint and you can choose some pretty extraordinary colors. Now in terms of the actual overall styling, you would not describe this as sleek. It is much too big to be a sleek vehicle but it is very aerodynamic and Rolls-Royces are really meant to be more upright and bulky and solid to convey this whole idea of super solid coddling luxury. And I think that this one does it really quite well. Being a two-door coupe in Rolls-Royce speak the Spectre has what we call coach doors. We don't call them suicide doors anymore, we don't do that. But the coach doors are super long and allow access to the full-size backseat as well. They are power operated, so they will open with assistance and they will close either with a push of the button inside or if you just put your foot on the brake pedal. Now the slab sides of this thing are very imposing and the belt line is very high but that whole thing just lends itself to that increased feeling of solidity and isolation that you get whenever you're driving any Rolls-Royce, and it does so I think pretty effectively in this one as well. Now, as nice as it is to be seen arriving in a Rolls-Royce it's actually even better to actually be arriving in a Rolls-Royce. The interior of this thing is stunning. Now these doors are huge and long, but once you get in, you simply put your foot on the brake and it will automatically close like that. You can also use these two buttons here on the center console, which will actually close either the driver's or the passenger side door. Now once in, you do have to start it. It's not like a Tesla. Well, it's not going to automatically start up once you sit down and put your foot on the brake. You do have to push that button but the first thing you are struck by in here is just the material quality. It doesn't get any better than this. It quite literally doesn't get any better than this. Everything in here feels super expensive and super solid. I mean, the wood is real wood. The metal is real metal. And listen to this, the vents are so solid and actually metal that it all feels just ridiculously good and ridiculously expensive mostly because it is. Now from an electronic standpoint there are a couple of things to note in this interior. You do have a digital gauge cluster, but it's not like what you'd find in a number of other electric vehicles. It's not reconfigurable. It is basically coming one way and it's available in several different colors but you don't get to change them. You choose the color from the factory to match the rest of the interior, and it's going to be that color for as long as the car is the car. I don't mind that. I think it actually lends a sense of permanence to the vehicle. I mean, if you were choosing a normal gauge cluster with actual dials, they would only be one color as well. And the fact that it matches up really nicely to the rest of the upholstery, I think it's kind of a neat touch that upholstery is extraordinary. Everything in here that looks like leather is leather and it feels just fantastic. All the stitching is super straight and the colors in here this one is black and yellow but you can have any color combination you want in here. The amount of different combinations is astonishing. Go play with the Rolls-Royce vehicle configurator at their website. That's a really good way to lose an hour or two. The other electronics in here you have your multimedia system which is new in the Spectre, and yeah, it is a derivation of the BMW iDrive but it really doesn't look very much like iDrive and Rolls-Royce is now branding the entire thing. They're calling the new multimedia thing spirit which makes sense. Everything is some sort of a spirit or Ghost or Phantom or Wraith or Spectre. You do have a lot of the traditional Rolls-Royce controls in here. You've got the fairly odd and inscrutable climate control system that has different dials up top and on the bottom for temperature control. What you don't have in here is a lot of touch sensitive stuff because Rolls-Royce still understands that actual luxury means that the feel of something operating is what conveys that sense of luxury. You touch a flat tunnel, doesn't feel like anything but you push a button and that sense of precision and pushing the button is really what lends itself to defining luxury. That's something that a lot of the German competitors are kind of losing sight of. Now, this is an enormous car and it is a very high car as well. That hood is high, this belt line is high but the visibility out is actually better than you might think. Largely due to these enormous side mirrors. I've towed trailers behind pickup trucks with smaller mirrors than these so they are large and they're kind of imposing but I don't hate it because you are able to actually see around you really quite well. You've also got a lot of other traditional fun Rolls-Royce features in here. You not only have a Starlight headliner now you also have Starlight doors which honestly looks better at night, but even at night the whole thing in here just lights up and sparkles which it pretty much should for as much as it costs. Now, given that this is the first ever all electric Rolls-Royce, how it drives is actually really quite important. And I can say that it is absolutely spectacular. It is silent. There is no powertrain noise, none. You can make it make powertrain noise. There's actual setting where it'll make noise if you wanted to, but there's none. There's actually not a whole lot of noise of anything at all. Very little road noise at all through the tires. There is no wind noise. You're hearing nothing. Even cars that are coming past you are just these little faint whooshes as it goes past. This is probably one of the most isolated insulating coddling luxury car experiences I have ever had. And I don't think Rolls-Royce owners are gonna miss the gasoline V12. I mean, Rolls-Royces were already pretty quiet and the the V12, if you've never driven one and you probably haven't, they're fairly rare. V12s are incredibly smooth and very quiet and Rolls-Royces were always known for that. But this, this just takes it to the next level. Now, powering this thing are two motors, one up front one in back, so it has permanent all-wheel drive. There's no transmission. The battery is a 102 kilowatt hour unit that is shared with the BMW i7. And it's good for probably around 260 to 280 miles of range. Rolls-Royce hasn't yet told us what the official US EPA range numbers are going to be but after I'd had it fully charged this morning it said 280 miles. So I think that's about enough. Nobody road trips in a Rolls-Royce they're typically meant for shorter jaunts city duty. You don't need super long range in a electric Rolls-Royce because if you're really not driving it all that far and you probably, even though you can fast charge it, 90% of owners of this thing said they're gonna charge it at home anyway. I can't honestly see somebody sitting in a Starbucks parking lot for an hour with their Rolls-Royce plugged in. Yeah, it's gonna be charged at home. Power in this thing is exceptional. You've got a system output of 577 horsepower and 664 pounds feet of torque. Now, the actual individual motors make more than that but you can't just add the front and rear horsepower together and create a new one. They deliver power at different points and different times. So that is the number that Rolls-Royce is giving. Rolls-Royce says that this thing has a zero to 60 time of about 4.4 seconds, which is not as quick as something like a Lucid Air Sapphire but it's not meant to be. You're never really supposed to be thrown around in a Rolls-Royce. It's meant for effortless, calm, continuous power but when you want it, all you need to do is just plant your foot and there's plenty of it. And again, it arrives with absolutely no noise no powertrain noise whatsoever. No drama, no weirdness, no unusual feelings. In fact, that's probably the most remarkable part about driving the Spectre is that it just feels normal. Well, as normal as a Rolls-Royce feels compared to, you know those of us who are more familiar with like a Hyundai Venue. It is calm, it is cool and collected. You experience driving one of these things you don't really ever have to question why does it cost as much as it does. It becomes fairly obvious when you start driving it that the experience of driving one really is special and it is worth the amount of money that they want for it. The one thing that this thing is not is sporty but it's not meant to be sporty. It's meant to be, you know, that big block, solid, sturdy. It's not wallowy however. Everything feels really well controlled. The steering is, you know, fairly numb but it is very direct and it's not wandering all over the road as well. It is very well planted, very well controlled. The body motions are very well controlled. The ride is very well damped and quiet. You've got 23 inch wheels on this thing with super low profile tires on it. So every bump you hit should be this crazy jarring slam but it isn't. It's just calm and nice and luxurious. The brakes in the Spectre are very solid, very progressive, and you've got a B button here on the stock column which you might be familiar with if you drive a Toyota Prius. If you push this button it activates a more aggressive regeneration. It's not quite one pedal driving you still will need to hit the brakes given that this thing is 6,700 pounds and the fact that it can go zero to 60 as quickly as it does with that kind of weight, it's just amazing. It's also not really sporty in its handling, but again, not meant to be. Personal luxury coupe, not sports coupe. So it's not going to embarrass itself if you find yourself on some twisty roads between the, you know mansion and the mountains and the beach house but it's can handle 'em. If you happen to encounter them it's not gonna embarrass itself. It's not gonna make you sick it's not gonna make your passengers ill with unusual body motions. It all just works really very well. It feels super refined and super luxurious and super expensive because it is. We had better get used to the idea of electric Rolls-Royces, but quite frankly, I don't think that's going to be a problem at all. This kind of powertrain just makes so much sense for this kind of car and frankly for this kind of brand the absolute quietness of the thing really just augments what is already an exceptional luxury experience. Now, of all the people who've ordered a new Spectre rolls-Royce said that 40% of them are new to the brand entirely. They've never owned one before. And when Rolls-Royce asked them, "What took you so long? What were you waiting for?" A lot of them said, "Well we were waiting for Rolls-Royce to make an EV." They want something that is battery powered and greener and more eco-conscious. Now, whatever mental gymnastics you have to do in order to spend $422,000 on an electric car to drive to the private airport to board your Gulf Stream for a weekend off in Saint Tropez, you do you. I mean and good for you, quite frankly. But for the rest of us, I think everyone is going to be really pleased with the new electric Rolls-Royces because they just kind of feel more Rolls-Royce. If you'd like to learn more about the new 2024 Rolls-Royce Spectre or any of the Rolls-Royce lineup, you can look everything up on Cars.com. (gentle music)