2023 Rolls-Royce Spectre preview: A spectacular future?

"It has to be a Rolls-Royce first, and an electric vehicle second. That means no compromises anywhere, in quality, in driving, in design…everything."

Rolls-Royce's CEO, Torsten Müller-Ötvös, says this is the most important thing about the company's first full-production electric vehicle (EV), the Spectre.

A fully-electric Rolls-Royce is the obvious thing to do. Arguably no other brand in the upper-crust of motoring fits electric power better, since the priority of a car with the Spirit of Ecstasy on the bonnet has always been the opposite of ear-ringing, neck-straining performance.

A deep well of smooth power, poised handling, and extreme refinement, are things that electric drivetrains can promise more easily than vibration-filled combustion engines.

It's obvious, but far from simple. Firstly because the car will be without the traditional heart of a Rolls-Royce, a V12 engine. And secondly because with Spectre, Ötvös and his team don't seem content in just making a Rolls-Royce that happens to be an EV, but a Rolls-Royce that brings the brand into a new age with electronically-charged 'high definition' driving.

From what we found out first hand, it looks well poised to deliver on that promise.

From there to eternity

Rolls-Royce invited CarBuyer to experience the Spectre as a passenger, both on Miramas test track and the roads of the French Riviera. CarBuyer has driven, and ridden in, test prototypes here before, including the BMW i8 and BMW 330e, but those were projects near completion.

Rolls Royce's fastidiousness means we've never done the same in a Rolls-Royce prototype, let alone one this early in its forming: Spectre is not even a year into its development and only 40 per cent done. In fact it's so larval that Rolls-Royce hasn't released any confirmed performance specs for the car yet, so we don't have any black-and-white about its range, acceleration, or more.

What we do know is that Spectre, when it launches in late 2023, will bring many firsts. It's the first electric Rolls-Royce, the first super-luxury segment EV, and will likely be the only car in that segment for some time as well.

It will be a coupe, the same size as the Phantom Coupe (from 2016, the car's 'spiritual predecessor' says Rolls-Royce). Yes, it's a coupe and not a limo because the company is aiming for a bigger impact, something 'emotional and exciting' in Müller-Ötvös' words.

Rolls-Royce isn't a stranger to electricity in its long history, and Spectre isn't Rolls-Royce's first EV either. That was the 102 EX from 2011, an electric Phantom concept built to test customer demand. Journalists loved it, but the 102 EX's range - around 200km - was the compromise clients couldn't accept and that kept it a spiritual project.

Company founder Henry Royce was an electrical engineer, with electric motors from his company making their way into cranes and - highly likely - cars too. In 1900, the other founder, Charles Rolls, tested an electric Columbia carriage and said: "They are perfectly noiseless and clean. There is no smell or vibration and they should become very useful for town use when fixed charging stations can be arranged. But for country use I do not anticipate they will be very serviceable - at least not for many years to come."

122 years on, the time has well and truly come.

High wire tension

No doubt Spectre will have the same presence all Rolls-Royces have, but confirmation on that will have to wait because of the camouflage - the words are from Mr Rolls as you probably figured - but the Spectre isn't short on size, even with the eye-bending suit on. It's the same size as the Phantom Coupe, or 5.6-metres long, and nearly two-metres wide.

In the broad strokes it appears to be much more sleek though, especially with a more rounded nose, and unlike the Phantom Coupe's three-box shape, the rear plunges downward in an elegant coupe style. We can't see it clearly, but the side of the car stretching from the A-pillar to the taillights is a single piece of bodywork, the longest aluminium 'deep draw' piece made by Rolls-Royce to date.

Rolls-Royce makes its own fashion, as the palace-on-wheels Phantom shows, but in this it has to bend to physics, because superior aerodynamics are a key factor for EV range. There's no mention of size or range, as we've said, but the company did reveal that it will use the largest capacity battery available from the BMW Group.

BMW's fifth-gen drive technology, already a success in the impressive iX, iX3, and i4, was the base which Rolls-Royce worked with to develop Spectre's drivetrain. We expect dual motors, at least 600hp, a battery pack of at least 110kWh and a range of at least 500km since Spectre is slated to be a grand-touring coupe.

Our first passenger experience is a 40-minute stint in the front passenger seat of the Spectre with Project lead engineer Jorg Wunder at the wheel. The 40-or-so kilometres we travel will be just a small part - 625,000km in total - of testing done in the area, itself of a total of 2.5-million kilometres of development for the entire project.

We enter via Spectre's reverse-opening door - just like Phantom - and it's spacious and easy to sit in, though this is unlike any Rolls we've been in, since it's still festooned with temporary vinyl coverings, equipment and switches mounted industrial-style in the cabin. It's a development car, obviously, which is why Rolls-Royce doesn't allow any photos of the interior.

From the passenger seat, visibility is good, despite the raked A-pillars and Mr Wunder has no trouble threading Spectre through the narrow streets of the old town of St Remy de Provence, and later out onto the winding B-roads.

This being a coupe, I'm expecting a sporty, stiff ride, and perhaps a slightly more pointy nose. Mr Wunder is doing his best impression of a chauffeur, taking it easy and treating the throttle like a warm pet.

But here's the surprise: Compared to the Phantom Series II running on a similar route it feels more comfortable, it's less harsh over small bumps, the body more controlled over big bumps.

Very little can outclass the Phantom, but it seems Spectre has - or is well on its way - to doing so, and that's likely down to Spectre's new 'proprietary smart suspension system'.

Rolls-Royce has thrown every tech trick in the book to get Spectre to another level, chassis wise : the latest air suspension, active roll cancellation, satellite navigation for corner prediction, and a new system dubbed Flagbearer, which reads the road and tarmac conditions. For example, the system will decouple the anti-roll bars on the straight to prevent side-to-side rocking, but do the opposite for corners.

The crazy thing is, the Spectre is far from finished. "We're only about 40 per cent of the way through the development," says Wunder, when I ask how far along the team is.

Silent flight on track

On the road, many EVs are refined, but on track is where the superlatives can be seen, felt, or heard, and the handling track at Miramas serves up more Spectre surprises.

Mr Wunder gives it heavy throttle leaving the pitlane - there's no accompanying soundtrack yet - and the Spectre flies forward. It's not scary, neck-snapback, eyes-rolled fast of course, this is a Rolls after all, but we are going fast. I can't quite tell, since there aren't many reference points and I've never been here before.

"If I fart here, I can't blame the car. Better go somewhere else."

Judging by the interior noise is useless because the car is still very quiet, and it feels like 90km/h or so. I can't see the speedo from where I am sitting so I ask Jorg how fast we're going. "150km/h," he says.

My obvious surprise makes him laugh out loud. He's not blitzing the track, but not holding back either, as the G-forces imply. But Spectre grips the road with superb poise, delivering that very Rolls-Royce feeling of going real fast without your passenger realising it. And more than that, it seems entirely devoid of tyre roar.

No mean feat when the car is supposed to run 23-inch wheels as standard - the largest size to come on a factory car in nearly a century. Another thing to note was that this handling circuit was made to replicate high-speed running on degraded tarmac, the worn down type where the tar has receded to leave small rocks (macadam) jutting out.

The kind of road that can turn almost any sort of car into a roaring resonance chamber and which even a Phantom can't overcome entirely. Spectre, it seems, is well on its way to delivering a new level of refinement.

Digital divide, conquered?

From what we can tell, the Spectre seems almost unnaturally refined even at this early stage. But what of the company's claim of making Spectre the 'high-def' Rolls?

The car has more computing power than any Rolls-Royce before it, but it also uses a new architecture to achieve better driving performance, explains Dr Mihiar Ayoubi, Rolls-Royce's head of engineering.

He says that by giving each sub-system or domain more computing power to make decisions, it speeds up and improves the quality of the car's response. More than 25,000 data points and thrice the communication bandwidth between the domains gives huge latitude to the engineers to define the car's behaviour.

"These connections allow virtually unlimited possibilities when it comes to shaping the character of the Rolls-Royce. This is 'connected engineering'."

It sounds clinical, a far cry from the old-world spirit Rolls-Royce is so steeped in. But Ayoubi is confident it will take the cars to a new level. "It's digital, and a lot of numbers, yes. But a Rolls-Royce is made beyond those numbers, it's a feeling, and we translate these feelings into the car."

Electron spin

And 11 years on from the 102 EX, the EV world has done a total 180. But Spectre is well positioned for not one, but two reasons, since it now sits in two different categories that are now booming: Luxury goods and electric cars.

Rolls-Royce is on track to better its 2021 results in Singapore - and abroad - while luxury houses can't make products fast enough to keep up with demand from the affluent on a wave of 'revenge shopping'.

"I think that there was a build-up of wealth during Covid, which now must be spent. And our clients are very interested to drive and own the first electric Rolls-Royce, the first hyper luxury EV - and nobody else will be able to do this for a while," Müller-Ötvös told CarBuyer.

More importantly, in the long term, Spectre is the harbinger for the forthcoming wave of electric Rolls-Royces, the first step on a path that will see the company become totally electrified by 2030 and which "will secure the ongoing relevance of our brand for generations to come" says Müller-Ötvös.

When we were at Provence, it was gripped by a 39-degree heatwave, with London hitting 40-degrees for the first time in recorded history. The 'why' of creating EVs is becoming more and more apparent every day. For Rolls-Royce, we've peeked a little at the 'how' and the 'watt' 'what' is looking very exciting indeed.

This article was first published in CarBuyer.