2024 Rolls-Royce Spectre EV revealed, Australia confirmed

Another day, another high-end luxury electric vehicle. That’s where the margins are biggest and the costs most easily absorbed – and for now, it’s where many brands are focusing their electrification efforts.

Of course, in the case of the Rolls-Royce Spectre revealed today, it was hardly going to fit the mould for ‘affordable family EV’. Instead, what we’ve got here is a huge coupe with “indulgent proportions” and a design that clearly marks the Spectre as a successor to the V12-powered Wraith coupe.

Both cars feature a long tapering roofline with huge retro-styled C-pillars, along with almost undersized (again in a retro way) tail lamps and rear-hinged ‘suicide doors’ – or as Rolls prefers to say, coach doors.

The Spectre also boasts the widest grille “ever bestowed on a Rolls-Royce”, flanked by slender day-time running lamps above seemingly blacked-out driving lights.

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JUMP AHEAD

• The basics
• Power and acceleration
• Driving range
• Architecture
• Technology
• Australia
• Pricing

This is the first all-electric Rolls-Royce, debuting as the first model in a coming line-up that will see the BMW-owned British marque drop all combustion-engined models by 2030.

Beyond the Spectre, we can expect an electric Dawn to follow suit, along with battery-powered replacements for the Ghost and the Phantom. The next Cullinan SUV will need to be all-electric, too.

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Rolls-Royce Spectre: The basics

Power and acceleration

Rolls-Royce says it is still “refining” final figures for the Spectre, but for now it’s claiming 430kW and 900Nm outputs, with a 0-100km/h time of 4.5 seconds.

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Driving range

In at least its launch form, the 2024 Rolls-Royce Spectre will boast a driving range of 520 kilometres – far from the furthest in the market, but there are very few direct rivals to this huge 2975kg coupe.

Combined with a claimed 21.5kWh/100km WLTP-estimated efficiency rating, the Rolls-Royce Spectre is likely packing a battery capacity of around 100-110kWh. Battery architecture is unknown, although a 400V design is expected – as with the likely related BMW i7 and its 102kWh battery pack.

In its top xDrive60 form, the i7 lists 447kW and 1000Nm, with a 0-100km/h time of 4.7 seconds and a maximum charging speed of 200kW (outdone by the Polestar 3’s 250kW speed on 400V). The new i7 rides on a 3215mm wheelbase and weights around 2650kg.

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Architecture

The Spectre is underpinned by a new in-house aluminium spaceframe, reinforced by steel sections and adorned in some of the largest-formed aluminium panels produced by the marque, yet.

The new bespoke platform also makes the Spectre the most rigid Rolls ever produced – said to be 30 per cent stiffer than existing Rolls-Royce cars.

Along with its EV powertrain, the new architecture allowed designers to form the most aerodynamic shape possible, yielding a drag coefficient of just 0.25, unprecedented for the marque and still uncommon for many brands.

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Technology

For that, Rolls-Royce says the new Spectre is the most connected and intelligent Rolls ever, boasting 141,200 ‘sender-receiver relations’ – around three times as much as a typical combustion Rolls-Royce.

Faster computing power allows the Spectre’s various systems to respond quickly to a variety of factors including weather, driver inputs, vehicle status and road conditions. Of course, as buyers will expect, this has allowed engineers to perfect the brand’s signature ‘magic carpet ride’.

The Spectre also utilises active roll stabilisation, which can dynamically stiffen, slacken, or even decouple adjustable sway bars entirely, depending on road and driving conditions to deliver the ultimate body control in any situation.

The Flagbearer system oversees all of the car’s dynamic system, including adaptive damping and four-wheel steering, combined with satellite navigation, to best predict the road ahead.

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When will the Rolls-Royce Spectre come to Australia?

Rolls-Royce has confirmed the all-electric Spectre will be bound for Australia when it launches in late 2023.

Speaking at a press conference for the launch of the new Black Badge Ghost back in January, local sales boss Ian Grant said there is a lot of interest in the brand's upcoming EV, and the company had already started taking deposits.

"Customers are putting money down, people who have not owned a Rolls-Royce before (and those who have had a couple in the past).

"There is no better brand in the world to become electrified. The silent waft-ability you get from a Rolls-Royce suits it perfectly. Our customers have told us they want the driving dynamics of an EV – the instant power, the very fast 0-100 times."

On why the luxury carmaker has decided to go fully-electric with the Spectre, rather than initially introduce a hybrid vehicle, Grant added it would have been a "half step" and "isn't very Rolls-Royce".

Australia is expected to be a key market for the Spectre, although interest is also understood to be strong in other parts of the region, such as Thailand.

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Rolls-Royce Spectre pricing

We expect the Rolls-Royce Spectre’s price to position it between the Cullinan SUV (starting at $692,150) and the flagship Phantom (starting at $915,400).