Electric Rolls-Royce Spectre testing ahead of Australian launch

Having spent past months testing under the gruelling arctic conditions of Arjeplog, Sweden, the Rolls-Royce Spectre – the brand’s first EV product – now enters second phase testing in France.

Expected to launch in the fourth quarter of 2023, and already confirmed for Australia, Rolls-Royce says Spectre development is now approximately '40 per cent' complete, as it undergoes a further 625,000km of testing at Autodrome de Miramas and the roads of the French Riviera.

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The Spectre spearheads an ambitious EV plan for Rolls-Royce, having committed to becoming a fully electric brand by 2030.

Underpinning the Spectre is a new in-house aluminium spaceframe architecture, reinforced by steel sections, 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. The bespoke platform, and EV powertrain, also allowed designers to form the most aerodynamic shape possible, yielding a drag coefficient of just 0.25, unprecedented for the marque.

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The advanced architecture and EV powertrain, naturally, demand more computing technologies. 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.

Quickened computing power allows the Spectre’s various systems to respond to a variety of factors including weather, driver inputs, vehicle status and road conditions. This has also allowed engineers to perfect the brand’s signature ‘magic carpet ride’.

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The Spectre 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, combining with satellite navigation, to best predict the road ahead.

As the Rolls-Royce Spectre silently wafts towards production, the brand states that the ‘electric super coupe’ still has another one million kilometres to cover before the global testing programme is to be completed.

The first customer deliveries of Rolls-Royce's first-ever electric car are expected in Q4 of 2023.

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