FIRST DRIVE ROLLS-ROYCE 102EX:WHY, EXACTLY, is Rolls-Royce building an electric car? The 102EX concept is not, the firm is keen to stress, about environmental sustainability. It's far more important than that: it's about the sustainability of Rolls-Royce as a business.
Its customers don’t ask it for more environmentally acceptable cars. It’s not that they don’t care. If they want a Toyota Prius they’ll just buy one. They don’t look to Rolls-Royce for green solutions, and as one of their fleet of cars, they don’t drive a Phantom or Ghost far – or often enough – to be bothered by its consumption.
This is a problem for Rolls-Royce, which knows that one day the oil will run out, and that it needs to be ready with an alternative to the petrol V12s that its customers find acceptable.
You’d have thought that near-silent, vibration-free electric motors that deliver all their huge torque instantly would be ideal; in the quest for perfect refinement, imagine being able to take the noisy old internal combustion engine (even a silky Rolls V12) out of the equation altogether.
But a Rolls-Royce is more than a luxury good; it’s meant to be a supreme piece of engineering too, and the firm is remarkably candid about being unsure how important an actual engine is to its reputation for engineering. That’s why it has built the 102EX; it wants to let its customers drive it, and ask them. And it seems quite prepared for them to hate it.
Up front is what Rolls believes is the biggest battery ever fitted to a passenger car: 96 snappily titled lithium-nickel-cobalt-manganese-oxide cells arranged to mimic the shape of the absent V12 and gearbox.
A full charge takes between eight and 20 hours depending on supply. There’s a five-pin socket that glows and flashes as it works in the hatch in the C-pillar vacated by the fuel filler, and an induction-charging plate underneath that will allow you to charge up by driving over a similar plate in the heated floor of your garage, doing away with the need to ever stick anything to the side of your car. Two AC motors sit above the rear axle and drive it through a single reduction gear.
The styling isn’t radically different, helping to keep the focus on the tech. There’s a gorgeous new 16-layer Atlantic Chrome paint finish, and a new, more environmentally friendly vegetable-tanned chestnut leather trim that shows more of the hides’ natural creases and even extends to the floor.
The Spirit of Ecstasy emblem is translucent and lit with blue LEDS, and the RR logo is red, as it always on “experimental” models.
The numbers do stand out. The 102EX makes a total of 383bhp, down from 447bhp with the V12, but torque goes up 10 er cent to a massive 800Nm. At about 2,700kgs, mass is up less than 200kgs but that monstrous torque figure means the Phantom will still hit 100km/h in less than eight seconds, and is limited to a top end of 160km/h.
But forget all the figures. Numbers can’t describe what it’s like to drive an electric Rolls-Royce. The 102EX makes a strong claim to be the most refined car ever made, and driving it is one of the weirdest experiences I’ve had at the wheel.
The effortless, almost silent way it surges away will be familiar to anyone who’s driven a modern electric vehicle. There’s a faint, Star Trek sigh from the twin electric motors behind the rear seats; the engineers could have silenced it completely, but I like it. It’s slower than the petrol car, but not by much, and still plenty quick enough.
Like other good EVs, the Rolls is an immensely relaxing thing to drive; not only is there no noise and only one gear, but you seldom need to shift your foot to the brake as the gentle braking effect of the motors as they become generators generally slows you enough.
Because the Rolls still has arguably the best chassis refinement of any car, even after eight years on sale, once you lose the engine there isn’t much left to hear or feel. Any time you sit in a seat and are moved forward – in a car, train or aircraft – you feel vibration. Driving the 102EX is like sitting in the sofa you might be reading this from; your eyes tell you you’re moving, but your backside totally disagrees. You don’t feel disconnected; you’re still in charge, and despite being powered electrically rather than hydraulically, the steering and brakes still have the same weight and feel. It’s eerie-delightful; it made me giggle aloud the first time I moved off, and I think Rolls-Royce owners are going to love it.
This is the first real exploration of how super-luxury cars might drive in 20 years’ time. And despite protestations that this car exists purely to explore new directions for the firm and will never be put into production, Rolls-Royce is going to find it very hard to resist the customers who will come to it with open chequebooks once they’ve driven this extraordinary car, asking for a 102EX of their own.
Factfile
DimensionsLength 5,840mm; width 1,990mm; height 1,638 mm
Bootspace460 L
Unladen weight2,720kg
Power output388bhp
Torque800 Nm
BatteryNCM (Lithium-Nickel-Cobalt- Manganese-Oxide) li-ion
Numberof cells 96
Capacity71kW/h
Battery pack weight640kg
Peak current330kW at 850 Amps
Charge time(est) 20 hours single phase (eight hours three-phase)
Top speed160 km/h (governed)
Acceleration0-100km/h in under eight seconds
CO2 emissionsNil