The Car That Will Change Everything

In the oasis of Napa Valley, we witness the beginning of a new era in the Rolls-Royce Spectre.

- Eugene Phua

THE IDEA OF an electric car is nothing new. Saturday morning cartoons and science-fiction novels have been bandying the idea about for decades. Automotive engineers have been toying with the execution of combustion-free engines for years too. Why, it was even prophesied in the beginning of the 20th century. “The electric car is perfectly noiseless and clean. There is no smell or vibration,” Charles Stewart Rolls said in 1900. “They should become very useful when fixed charging stations can be arranged.” Four years later, Rolls met Henry Royce and they would go on to co-found Rolls-Royce Motor Cars, the apogee of luxury cars and the standard-bearer of luxury ever since.

In 2021, the company announced that it had begun tests on an electric car and a year later RollsRoyce Motor Cars unveiled the Spectre—its first electric car and the harbinger of a monumental paradigm shift, in which all Rolls-Royce cars will be fully electric by 2030. “Conceiving an electric car is easy. To engineer an electric Rolls-Royce is quite an endeavour,” says Torsten Müller-Ötvös, CEO of Rolls-Royce Motor Cars. “We’ve actually been experimenting with electrification since 2011, but the technology back then was not up to our standards. We don’t want to compromise. It needs to be a Rolls-Royce first. Our clients want the full Rolls-Royce experience: it needs to drive, smell and feel like a Rolls-Royce.”

Engineering Excellence