Mentioned only briefly in the press release for the all-new, all-electric Rolls-Royce Spectre, was the fact that the British luxury brand is going fully-electric by 2030. It was quite the shocking announcement, as Rolls hasn’t exactly been a big player in the world of electrification as of late. However, the brand seems to be confident in its electric tech if it wants to make the jump completely in just eight-nine years’ time.
The first electric Rolls will be the Spectre, an all-electric two-door GT car. It looks a bit like a Wraith from the official camouflaged photos Rolls released. However, it’s not a Wraith and is built on the brand’s new Architecture of Luxury chassis, whereas the Wraith was built on an old BMW 7 Series platform.
Rolls-Royce developed the Architecture of Luxury chassis, which is entirely unique to the Rolls-Royce brand and will share nothing with its BMW Group parent company, with electrification in mind. So even though the Phantom, Cullinan, and Ghost are built on the same AoL chassis and use internal combustion engines, the new flexible chassis can easily be used for electric cars.
So far, we don’t have much more information than that. It seems as if Rolls will begin to convert its current internal combustion vehicles over to electric powertrains. It might be a slow transition; adding EV variants to the lineup before removing the ICE models; but it’s one that will happen before 2030.
If Rolls-Royce succeeds and does convert to electrification by 2030, that will make it the seconds BMW Group brand to make the switch, following MINI. It will also leave only BMW as an internal combustion manufacturer in the group.
It’s not entirely surprising news. In fact, Rolls-Royce is the perfect brand for electrification, as its cars are big enough and already heavy enough that fitting massive battery packs isn’t an issue, and silent, torquey powertrains are exactly what the brand needs. An electric Rolls makes more sense than an internal combustion Rolls. In fact, Charles Rolls himself gushed about electrification back at the turn of the 20th century.
The only obstacle in the way of Rolls-Royce’s electric journey is range. While 300 miles of range is entirely doable, it might not be enough. Rolls-Royce customers are not ones to want to adapt to their vehicles — they want their vehicles to adapt to their existing ways of life. Stopping off to charge for forty minutes is inconvenient and a very un-premium experience. So you can imagine that Rolls customers might be hesitant.
However, with brands like Lucid, Tesla, and even Mercedes-Benz now reaching 400-500 miles of range (Lucid being the most at the moment), Rolls can use those cars as benchmarks.
By 2030, the world’s oldest and most prestigious luxury car maker will become entirely electric. That should be headline news on every publication in the world. We can’t wait for the Spectre and we can’t wait to see what comes next.
