Rolls-Royce has begun a new era for the luxury carmaker by unveiling its first-ever fully electric model.
The eagerly awaited Rolls-Royce Spectre EV is being touted as the “spiritual successor” to the Phantom Coupé and marks the first step towards achieving the British company’s pledge to have an all-electric line-up by 2030. CEO Torsten Müller-Ötvös told Autocar earlier this year that all-electric successors to the Cullinan SUV, Ghost saloon and Phantom limousine would follow.
The newly revealed Spectre is expected to cost from £275,000 in the UK and $413,000 in the US (where Rolls-Royce says over 300 people have already put down a deposit). According to Rolls-Royce, the coupe sprints from zero to 60mph in 4.4 seconds and has a driving range of up to 260 miles on a full charge. It's sadly not within the reach of the budgets of almost everybody on Earth, but it's good to know that the super-rich will be able to get from A to B without polluting the atmosphere with fossil fuel emissions.
Boss Müller-Ötvös says the UK government’s planned ban on sales of new internal combustion engine cars by 2030 was one motive for the push towards a fully electric offering. But he said that “we’re also driven by our fairly young clientele worldwide”, with the average age of the marque’s customers now at just 43.
“We’re seeing more and more people asking actively for an electrified Rolls-Royce,” Müller-Ötvös added.
Perhaps surprisingly, the EV revolution was “prophesised” by company founder Charles Rolls in 1900, said ElectricCarsReport.com. After acquiring an early version known as 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”.
Fast-forward more than 120 years and “the time has come for Rolls-Royce Motor Cars to fulfil the prophecy of its founding father”, the Rolls-Royce's website concluded.
