- The 2024 Spectre is Rolls-Royce’s very first electric car.
- It costs $420,000 and up.
- That tremendous chunk of change gets you an opulent interior and positively serene driving experience.
It’s easy to question why somebody would possibly spend half-a-million dollars on a car like a Rolls-Royce. Until you get behind the wheel. Then it all makes perfect sense.
I spent a day last month testing out the new 2024 Rolls-Royce Spectre, the ultra-luxury brand’s first electric vehicle. It was my first time driving a Rolls, and I was blown away by the $420,000 coupe’s opulent interior and impossibly serene driving feel.
Let me take you along for the ride and show you everything there is to know about the Spectre.
Rolls-Royce invited me and other journalists out to Napa, California, to be some of the first in the world to drive the Spectre.
Disclaimer: Rolls-Royce got me a discounted stay in a nice hotel and kept me fed while I tested the car.
I’d driven lots of electric cars, including some quite expensive ones from luxury brands like Mercedes and BMW. Naively, I didn’t think the Spectre would be all that much different.
Boy was I wrong.
From the outside, the Spectre has an intimidating, weighty presence. Its elegance and monolithic design are pure Rolls-Royce.
At a glance, the EV has all the markers Rolls is famous for: A flashy grille, a swept-back silhouette, center caps that prominently display the Rolls-Royce logo, right-side up, even when the car is in motion.
Of course there’s also the iconic Spirit of Ecstasy hood ornament, which Rolls-Royce redesigned for the Spectre to make it a bit more aerodynamic.
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After admiring a fleet of Spectres — done up in practically every color of the rainbow — from afar, I was eager to hop inside.
What greeted me was undoubtedly the most luxurious and comfortable cabin I’ve ever been in.
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The leather driver’s seat was plush and supportive. Sinking back into it, I noticed that the headrest was remarkably soft and cushy.
The wheel, in typical Rolls-Royce fashion, was oversized and thin.
The cabin was awash in exquisite wood trim, deliciously soft leather, and twinkling bits of real metal.
The air vents are solid pieces of aluminum and each have a hefty plunger that you can use to shut them, if you so choose.
Even the stalks attached to the steering column were wrapped in leather and featured the same blue accent stitching that striped around the rest of the cabin.
There was an analog clock …
… and who could forget Rolls-Royce’s signature umbrella in the door.
The attention to detail was extraordinary.
Rolls-Royce’s starlight headliner — which scatters thousands of shimmering “stars” across a car’s ceiling — has become an iconic, popular add-on. For the Spectre, Rolls is introducing starlight doors, which cocoon passengers in 270 degrees of stars.
I expected it to be a bit gimmicky, but the feature feels quite special, particularly at night.
Once I was done soaking in the interior and getting accustomed to where everything was, it was time to drive.
I depressed the brake pedal and the driver’s door swung shut electronically. I pressed a button between the front seats to shut my passenger inside.
There were only two of us, but the Spectre can seat four rather comfortably.
Out on the road, I was blown away by how peaceful and effortless the Spectre was to drive. It was unlike anything I’d ever experienced.
First off, it’s unbelievably quiet — almost like putting on a pair of noise canceling headphones.
I could hear passing cars, but only barely. All the noise of the chaotic outside world was delightfully muffled as I coasted through wine country in my extravagant, leather-wrapped cocoon.
The Spectre floated effortlessly down the road, bobbing gently over imperfections in the asphalt — like a boat encountering ripples on an otherwise glassy lake.
On a particularly smooth bit of pavement, the sensation is divine. Then you hit a bumpy patch and are reminded that the Spectre is still merely a car and not, in fact, a hovercraft.
With two motors producing 584 horsepower and 664 pound-feet of torque, you might expect the Spectre to be a rocket ship. Other electric cars sporting those sorts of numbers are violently accelerating speed machines.
But that wouldn’t be very Rolls-Royce-like, would it? No — the Spectre is powerful and quick, but it isn’t shocking or neck-snapping.
Deceleration isn’t too sudden, either. The Spectre has regenerative braking, a function common to electric cars that uses the motors to slow the car down and recoup energy.
The company says it specifically tuned the regenerative braking so that a passenger wouldn’t spill their champagne as the Spectre comes to a stop. That’s what it teaches chauffeurs in its training program.
Range is estimated by the EPA at 260 miles, plenty for a few hours of cruising around Northern California.
That’s disappointing compared to many other high-end EVs, but Rolls-Royce says it’s sufficient for its owners, who can easily pick a different car from their fleet if they ever need to travel farther.
Rolls-Royce is all about providing the utmost in refinement, comfort, and craftsmanship, and I think the Spectre has that in spades.
But as I learned later on in my trip, there may be one thing better than driving a Rolls-Royce: Getting driven.
Source: I N S I D E R
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