Rolls-Royce Spectre launches in Chennai

L-R- Hal Serudin, Rolls Royce- Corporate Communications Manager, Asia Pacific, Vasanthi Bupathi, Dealer Principal, KUN Group, U Venkatesh, Managing Director, KUN Group
| Photo Credit: John Xavier

British luxury automaker Rolls-Royce unveiled its first car in 1904. In 1900, four years before the company was incorporated, one of the co-founders, Charles Rolls, made a prescient remark. He said, “The electric car is perfectly noiseless and clean. There is no smell or vibration. They should become very useful when fixed charging stations can be arranged.”

The electric future Rolls envisaged more than a century ago has now become a reality for the ultra-luxury car maker. The company’s first electric vehicle (EV), Spectre, began its testing journey in September 2021. It traversed different terrains, battled extreme weather conditions (from -40 degree C to 50 degree C), and completed 2.5 million kilometres before it was unveiled in October 2022. Subsequently, the EV went through an endurance test for another year.

The ultra-luxury carmaker on Tuesday launched Spectre in South India in Chennai. The launch in the southern city comes roughly three months after the UK in October.

Spectre ushers in the electric future for the marque as the company plans to make its entire fleet electric by the end of 2030. The ultra-luxury electric coupe will be the first of a new class of EV coming from the Goodwood, England-based carmaker.

This generously spaced, visually-stunning two-door fastback is the third-generation Goodwood-era Rolls-Royce car. The home of Rolls-Royce in Goodwood is the only place where the marque’s cars are designed and hand-made. In 2003, Phantom, launched from this facility heralded a new age for the ultra-luxury car maker, combining technology with traditional hand-craftsmanship, to produce an opulent sedan for the 21st Century with an all-aluminium space frame. Building on that design technology, the BMW-owned luxury carmaker handcrafted Ghost (in 2009) and Cullinan (2018), which represented Rolls-Royce 2.0.

Spectre, with its fully electric powertrain and decentralised smart interface, marks the start of Rolls-Royce 3.0 — a new era for super-luxury motoring. The car is fitted with dual synchronous motors — the front electric motor produces 190kW/365 Nm, and rear motor delivers 360kW/710 Nm. In terms of acceleration, the Spectre can go from 0 to 100 kmph in 4.5 seconds.

This fully electric car gets a ‘recuperative braking‘ feature, which allows the driver to switch to a single-pedal drive mode. All one has to do is just push the ‘B‘ button in the column shifter. More commonly known as regenerative braking in the EV world, this feature helps electric cars convert kinetic energy when braking into electrical energy. This in turn leads to increased range.

The Rolls-Royce Spectre is powered by a 102 kWh lithium-ion battery and the company confirms the car can go 530km on a single charge. Charging from 10-80% takes about 34 minutes with a 195kW (DC) fast charger.

The Spectre also gets the company’s new infotainment platform, ‘SPIRIT’, that gets the owners more closely connected to the car. The Whispers app lets them interact with the car remotely. Unlike voice-based infotainment feature offered in other premium luxury cars, the one in Spectre is distinctly different as it lets them customise the car’s interior palette and exterior finish.

Priced at ₹7.5 crore, ex-showroom, before additional options, the Spectre is the most expensive EV for sale in the country.