2025 Rolls-Royce Spectre review: The $1 million EV

The world’s most luxurious electric vehicle (EV) is of course a Rolls-Royce Spectre.

It’s an EV that’ll easily set you back around AUD $1 million if optioned as the British manufacturer intends it to be. The Spectre is the start of a new era for Rolls, but is it one that buyers want?

The EV market has been hit by the saturation of seemingly endless options and ambitious OEM targets. Lower-end EVs are still holding their own, but higher-end models are struggling, and the Rolls-Royce Spectre is the most expensive EV you can buy in Australia.

Unlike other ultra high-end electric or electrified vehicles, the promise of a Rolls-Royce is never about outright performance. It’s about utmost luxury and opulence, a use case for which electrification makes perfect sense.

Do you really need a 6.75-litre V12 under the bonnet of your Rolls-Royce? You can’t really hear it anyway, and the point isn’t about having a V12.

The point is about having an engine that is capable enough to move the massive weight of the luxury boat you happen to be driving on the road.

Replace the V12 with electrification and what are you actually losing? There are many who think the 6.75-litre V12 (N74 B68 as it’s known internally) is the heart of any Rolls-Royce, but ultimately every brand needs to evolve in order to stay relevant.

This is why the Spectre exists. It’s a bold move from Rolls-Royce and while buyers may be a little more reluctant at first, the car itself is excellent in every imaginable way, except one – which we will get to at the very end.

How does the Rolls-Royce Spectre compare?

View a detailed breakdown of the Rolls-Royce Spectre against similarly sized vehicles.

Rolls-Royce

Spectre

How much does the Rolls-Royce Spectre cost?

The starting price of any high-end luxury car can be misleading because there are no standard Rolls-Royce vehicles.

All are customised to the owner’s taste and requirements. While the Spectre starts at $770,000 before on-road costs, the actual price can vary by a few hundred thousand dollars depending on the options fitted.

To see how the Rolls-Royce Spectre lines up against the competition, check out our comparison tool.

What is the Rolls-Royce Spectre like on the inside?

The Spectre’s interior is highly customisable, and like any Rolls-Royce it can be appointed exactly to a customer’s needs.

The company prides itself on fulfilling its customer’s exact requirements with the capacity to create interiors and exteriors in almost any colour scheme, using any material that can pass safety requirements (at a cost, of course).

Despite being an all-electric Rolls, the Spectre feels incredibly familiar inside. The ambience is very calming, and the switchgear is as you’d expect in the brand’s other vehicles.

This intentional similarity shows the powertrain transition hasn’t impacted the essence of the ultra-luxury electric super coupe.

Our test car came in Charles Blue leather with Mandarin stitching to match the Wittering Blue exterior paint, with a Silver Satin bonnet and illuminated grille.

Add in the Mandarin coach line scheme and the up-lit Spirit of Ecstasy, and this is one of the most beautifully specified Spectres going around.

Our test vehicle wasn’t fitted with it, but the Spectre is offered with a feature called Starlight Doors. They incorporate 4796 softly illuminated ‘stars’ into the doors themselves, to go along with the roof. In our tester, Canadel panelling hand-crafted from exquisite woods was fitted to the doors instead.

Best enjoyed at night, the illuminated fascia on the passenger side sees the Spectre nameplate enveloped in over 5500 stars – a process Rolls-Royce says took more than two years and 10,000 man hours to create.

The Spectre’s 380 litres of boot space is comically small for a car this big (compromised by its electrification), but it is at least shaped in such a way it can handle a few suitcases and other necessary items with relative ease.

The driving position and steering wheel are a joy, plus all elements of the infotainment system are readily available. There’s no denying the system resembles the menu and hierarchy of its German owners’ when using the screen.

This means everything infotainment-related works as expected. The company claims there’s at least 7km of cabling in the Spectre to manage the computers and systems that keep the EV going.

The are numerous USB-C ports around the cabin to keep your power hungry devices going and while it may sound criminal to use in a Rolls-Royce, wireless Apple CarPlay works a treat and helps manage one of the best stereo systems you can imagine in a moving vehicle.

Speaking of, it’s an incredible 1400W, 18-speaker setup, which Rolls-Royce says is bespoke, comprising seven tweeters, seven mid-range, two low-range, and two exciters – it’s hard to put into words the clarity the system can produce.

Still, it did make us sit in the car park for extended periods just listening to some iconic tracks.

Rolls-Royce could have given in to trends and gone with an ultra-modern interior with big screens and an overload of technology.

Instead it has chosen to remain traditional in offering a timeless, classic interior that remains true to its heritage and values. Ultimately, this is the sort of car you can drive for 1000km without really feeling the need to leave the cabin.

The two back seats are also very comfortable and spacious for a coupe. While you wouldn’t want to sit there for an extended period, there is no reason why four adults could not be transported in peak luxury in a Spectre.

To see how the Rolls-Royce Spectre lines up against the competition, check out our comparison tool.

What’s under the bonnet?

Rolls-Royce refers to the Spectre platform and its electric architecture as Rolls-Royce 3.0.

It counts the original 2003 Phantom – the first Goodwood-era Rolls-Royce – as Rolls-Royce 1.0. Rolls-Royce 2.0 is the Architecture of Luxury beneath the Cullinan and Ghost.

Despite being owned by BMW, the Spectre is built on a unique platform that was always meant to be used for electrification.

Utilising an all-aluminium space frame the company claims can be scaled up and down as required, it’s obvious all upcoming EV products from Rolls-Royce will be based on this same system.

While the Spectre is Rolls-Royce’s first production electric vehicle, the company plans to transition to an electric future by 2030.

In fact, Rolls is so committed to electrification it expects 20 per cent of its sales for 2024 to be electric (with Spectre alone), with that number increasing to 70 per cent by 2028, and 100 per cent by 2030 when it currently plans to stop producing internal combustion vehicles.

As many other OEMs have recently walked back their aggressive electrification claims, we expect that timeline to remain fluid for Rolls.

The EV architecture for the Spectre required some additional reinforcement and work to bring it up to RR’s standards.

It has a 30 per cent stiffer space frame than previous Rolls-Royce vehicles thanks to the integration of the 102kWh lithium-ion battery.

The company says the battery comprises cobalt and lithium from strictly controlled sources in our own backyard here in Australia, as well as Morocco and Argentina, before being tested in temperatures ranging from -40°C to +50°C.

The 700kg battery has also been engineered into the vehicle’s chassis in such a way to act as additional acoustic insulation. Rolls-Royce has utilised two electric motors. The front motor produces 190kW/365Nm, with the rear
packing 360kW/710Nm.

While it’s not a case of simply adding the two up, the combined system output is around 430kW (584 hp) with 900Nm of torque. This gives the 2890kg Spectre a 0-100km/h time of 4.5 seconds.

During our testing, the battery could be recharged on our AC Tesla wall charger at 22kW – this means it can go from dead to 100 per cent in just five and half hours, which is remarkable for such a massive battery.

To see how the Rolls-Royce Spectre lines up against the competition, check out our comparison tool.

How does the Rolls-Royce Spectre drive?

Like any Rolls-Royce, the Spectre is about getting its occupants to their destination in the most luxurious, comfortable way possible.

The Spectre’s suspension is the next-generation of the ‘Planar’ architecture first used on the Ghost.

With a great deal of computing power and the latest in suspension technology, the Spectre delivers a super smooth ride, adjusting for the road surface in real time.

With more structural rigidity than any Rolls before, the Spectre has done away with the upper wishbone damper used in the Ghost – and the computer systems can automatically decouple the anti-roll bars when required.

It offers far more freedom to each wheel in certain circumstances, such as uneven undulations on one side of the road.

While testing on Brisbane’s suburban and highway roads, we found the Spectre to be as smooth as anything we’ve ever driven while never compromising its capacity to take corners easily and elegantly.

That’s partially due to its ability to recouple its anti-roll bars when a corner is detected, stiffening the vehicle and the dampers all at once, in addition to engaging four-wheel steer to help the Spectre navigate its way around almost any road without feeling compromised.

Rolls-Royce says it has almost 20 parameters for the Spectre’s suspension, steering, braking, and powertrain in order to match the car’s characteristics to the road at hand.

Despite its 2890 kg kerb weight, the Spectre delivers incredible performance and acceleration that shows there is no need for a V12 engine up front. Better still, it does it all in complete silence and with relentless torque delivery.

We found the electric powertrain was smooth at speeds well above 100km/h, while still having enough in the tank to overtake almost anything without having to ask for permission.

There is no denying it’s a massive car, and parking the Spectre is an interesting experience.

The backward-opening doors themselves measure over 1.5m long, which means getting out of the car in tight spots can prove challenging. This is all part of the Rolls-Royce ownership experience.

Is the Rolls-Royce Spectre safe?

The Rolls-Royce spectre remains untested by safety authorities given its incredibly limited volume of production.

Nonetheless, given its underlying architecture and the structural rigidity of the vehicle, one would be safe to assume it can easily protect its occupants in the event of a crash.

How much does the Rolls-Royce Spectre cost to run?

Rolls-Royce offers a four-year, unlimited-kilometre warranty.

During that period all servicing is complimentary, with intervals for the Spectre set at 12 months or 15,000km, whichever happens first.

Given the longevity questions some might have on the battery, the company offers a 10-year warranty for the battery and provides roadside assistance if you happen to run out of charge in that time.

CarExpert’s Take on the Rolls-Royce Spectre

So, what’s not to like about the Rolls-Royce Spectre? The answer is nothing.

In terms of executing a near-perfect ultra-luxury electric coupe, the Spectre gets a 10/10 from us. But prospective buyers need to answer some serious questions.

A Rolls-Royce is the sort of vehicle that stays around for generations. Go on a classified site and you will find Rolls-Royce vehicles dating back more than 100 years, all the way back from the early 1900s.

The point is, a Rolls-Royce is not a car that gets scrapped. It is owned and loved indefinitely. Is that possible from an electrified Spectre?

The company says it has designed the battery so that damaged or worn-out cells can be replaced, which technically means that the car can run forever as long as proper maintenance is adhered to.

However, many remain sceptical about this process, and only time will tell if the Spectre has the same lifelong appeal as other models.

This brings about the second question, which is resale. The fairytale that Rolls-Royce customers don’t care about what they spend on a car is nonsense. No one is buying a Rolls-Royce with the intention of it having high resale value.

However, the question plays a big part if you are asked to pay over a million dollars for a car that might be worth a lot less immediately after delivery, let alone in a few years.

This isn’t reflective of the product, but outdated perceptions of EV longevity and the softer demand for EVs than some OEMs had anticipated. A basic case of supply and demand.

With EV resale values tanking due to perceived battery degradation issues, it would be fair to say that Rolls-Royce will need some time to prove to buyers its electric vehicles can maintain a similar resale percentage to its more traditional internal combustion-engined cars.

In the first seven months of 2024 the brand registered 23 new vehicles in Australia, of which 14 are Cullinan SUVs.

That means eight sedans have been sold of which we suspect not all are Spectres. Even so, it goes to show the limited volume of production these cars have and the exclusivity on offer.

No matter how you look at it the Rolls-Royce Spectre is the best electric vehicle on sale today, as it should be with its million-dollar price tag. Time will tell if Rolls-Royce customers will embrace it and future electric models as the company intends.

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