All current Rolls-Royce models to go electric by 2030
CEO details plan to follow up 2023 Spectre coupé with EV versions of Phantom, Cullinan and Ghost
Rolls-Royce will follow up its first EV, the Spectre coupé, with all-electric successors to the current Cullinan SUV, Ghost saloon and Phantom limousine.
Speaking to Autocar in the wake of the announcement that Rolls-Royce sold more cars in 2021 than in any previous year in its 117-year history, CEO Torsten Müller-Ötvös said it’s important that each model is replaced by an EV alternative as the firm progresses towards a pure-electric line-up by 2030.
The British firm will refresh its current range in the coming years but won’t launch any more combustion models, making the Mk2 Ghost the final petrol-powered Rolls-Royce to be introduced.
Müller-Ötvös highlighted the UK government’s planned 2030 ban on new ICE car sales as a particular incentive but said: “We aren’t only driven by legal: we’re also driven by our fairly young clientele worldwide, and we’re seeing more and more people asking actively for an electrified Rolls-Royce.”
The age of the average Rolls-Royce buyer has dropped sharply in recent years to just 43, and Müller-Ötvös notes that “quite a lot of our clients already own an electric car, be it a Tesla, a BMW or some other model”, and so have experience when it comes to operating EV chargers and range management.
He wouldn’t be drawn on the technical details of Rolls-Royce’s future EVs beyond confirming that “the entire portfolio will be electrified”. The Spectre’s 150 million-mile testing programme will no doubt inform the development of its future range-mates, accelerating the lead time of each EV based on Goodwood’s Architecture of Luxury.
Electrifying the entire portfolio, said Müller-Ötvös, is “a huge task for a relatively small company”, but the required investment won’t automatically translate into more expensive cars. “We never price ‘cost-driven’, we price ‘segment-driven’ and ‘substance-driven’,” explained Müller-Ötvös, emphasising that the Spectre – which will arrive in 2023, shortly after the similarly shaped Wraith bows out – will be priced according to its positioning rather than its powertrain.
The future electric Phantom therefore won’t necessarily cost more than the current V12 petrol-engined car’s £374,400 starting price.
A priority for the Phantom EV and its range-mates will be exhibiting characteristics that compensate for the loss of Rolls-Royce’s venerable V12, which will bow out in 2030. The firm’s electric powertrain will therefore be “very torquey”, promised Müller-Ötvös, and will allow for “waftability, silent movement, a magic carpet ride, utmost quality and so on”.
*Q&A: Rolls-Royce CEO Torsten Muller-Otvos*
*Will you be able to maintain profit margins with EVs? *
“One thing is clear: we will never bring a car to market that isn’t as profitable as the combustion-engined cars. That’s my credo. I would like to drive contribution margins per car, because I’m in the business of making profit: that’s my task in the BMW Group, not making volume.”
*How will you leverage the scale of the BMW Group as you move into the EV era? *
“We’re leveraging the BMW Group’s scale as we have done in the past: in a very intelligent way. We’re using components from the group which fit us, which make a Rolls-Royce truly a Rolls-Royce. We aren’t into rebadging existing bodies from mass-manufactured cars as Rolls-Royces, so we take components. We would be foolish not doing so.”
*Will you integrate the group’s autonomous driving systems? *
“We will introduce autonomous driving once it makes complete sense for our clients. So far, we haven’t reached that state. This segment is very different: you hardly see people driving from London to Edinburgh and so on; you see commuting traffic into and outside of cities, and mostly for fun. That’s why now only 20% of Rolls-Royces are chauffeur-driven. When I started here [in 2010], it was 80% chauffeur-driven, and I think that indicates that particularly younger drivers are quite keen to sit behind the wheel and drive the cars themselves.”
*So could we see more sporting Rolls-Royces aimed at keen drivers?*
“I wouldn’t use the word ‘sporting’. We have found a lovely sweet spot with how we tune Black Badge cars. I think we’ve already made the Ghost Black Badge is as sporty as any Rolls-Royce will get regular Ghost more appealing for self-drivers than ever before, and Black Badge is the cherry on the cake for the real self-driver. I will leave it like that for the moment, because the one thing I will never compromise is comfort. The sportier you go, the more compromises you need to make on the comfort side. Comfort is what makes people buy Rolls-Royces.”