12 August 2022
In April 1900, Charles Rolls, the company’s co-founder, was quoted as saying,’ The electric car is perfectly noiseless and clean. There is no smell or vibration, and they should become very useful when fixed charging stations can be arranged.’
Enter the Rolls-Royce Spectre.
In September 2021, Rolls-Royce started testing the Spectre at a facility in Arjeplog, Sweden, just 55 kilometres from the Arctic Circle to see how the first battery-powered Rolls-Royce would perform under extreme weather conditions.
The second phase of the testing moved to a more natural habitat for a Rolls-Royce: the French Riviera. Rolls-Royce has undertaken a rigorous 2.5 million km testing programme for its most important new car ever.
Some would argue that the 1904 Rolls-Royce with a twin cylinder producing 10HP was the most important, but I digress.
From the Riviera, it will carry on testing at the Bouches-du-Rhône in Provence, which was the race circuit that hosted the 1926 Grand Prix.
‘It is no exaggeration to state that Spectre is the most anticipated Rolls-Royce ever,’ Torsten Müller-Ötvös, chief executive officer at Rolls-Royce Motor Cars, said in a statement. ‘Free from the restrictions connected to the internal combustion engine, our battery-electric vehicle will offer the purest expression of the Rolls-Royce experience in the marque’s 118-year history.’
By 2025, Rolls-Royce expects to make just electric-powered cars. In the meantime, in 2023, we will have the Spectre with an electric powerplant producing 600 hp and will sadly propel Rolls-Royce away from its glorious V12 engines and into a new electric era.
What a visionary Charles Rolls turned out to be.
