STAR LIGHT EXPRESS

The Rolls-Royce Spectre has been over 120 years in the making. There's no badge better suited to electric power, but has it got the timing just right?

- PAUL HORRELL

There can hardly be a more suitable drive for a Rolls-Royce than electric motors. CS Rolls himself said it in 1900: "The electric car is perfectly noiseless and clean. There is no smell or vibration." Although, presciently, he did add that he had infrastructure concerns. After 120 years of trying, no petrol Rolls-Royce has a powertrain as smooth or silent or responsive as that of a 2011 Nissan Leaf. Or perhaps more relevant, a 2015 Tesla Model X - a powerful, heavy car that goes a long way and charges fast. But this is changing: in a year's time, this rather fabulous all-electric Spectre will land with its first customers. So TopGear asks Rolls-Royce boss Torsten Müller-Ötvös the obvious question: what kept you? His reply is emphatic. "The customers always said: it has to be a Rolls-Royce first, electric second."

Rolls-Royce knows those customers intimately. After all, even though their numbers keep growing, there still aren't that many of them around. Müller-Ötvös has been asking them for a decade what they think about EVs. "In comparison between where the clients were then and now, it has changed massively. On average they own seven cars and many already own an electric car. The feedback on electric propulsion, in general, is very positive." So the Spectre doesn't have to introduce them to the idea of a charge cable instead of a hose of explosive liquid.