Rolls-Royce Spectre 2024 Review

The 2024 Rolls-Royce Spectre coupe you’re looking at here costs $1,120,000 to drive away, but if you want a stock-as-a-rock version the electric Roller starts at $770,000 (plus on-road costs).

The thing is, very few – if any – Rolls-Royce buyers will settle for a stock-standard vehicle, and if you thought prestige German car brands had long and expensive option lists, you ain’t seen nothing yet.

The hand-threaded optic-fibre shooting star headliner that very few Rollers leave the factory without adds $35,000 to the asking price – and a lot more if you want to customise it.

A single hand-painted coach-line on each side of the car? That’ll be $4000 thanks. The striking seven-spoke fully-polished 23-inch alloy wheels seen in these images add $19,500, while the up-lit Spirit of Ecstasy (aka flying lady) adorning the bonnet adds $10,000 and the illuminated grille is an extra $5500.

Colour-coded leather seat piping ($8500) and stitching ($4500) incur extra costs, as do the Sindora timber veneer dashboard inlays ($6000), while the lavish lambswool ‘foot mats’ ($3200) and commission collection umbrellas ($3000) bump the price up further.

All these options and many more are fitted to the two-door, four-seat Rolls-Royce Spectre we’re testing here, demonstrating just how quickly the price can rise. And this vehicle doesn’t even include bespoke elements like custom commissioned parquetry, paint work and so on, which really send the price into the mesosphere.

But let’s be honest, most Rolls-Royce buyers wouldn’t even blink at this $1.12m price; I imagine they’d simply have the options explained by the genteel sales staff before sealing the deal with a hand-shake and maybe a bottle of Blanc de Blancs.

Warranty coverage lasts four years and servicing is complimentary for the duration of the warranty, with intervals set at 12 months or 15,000km, whichever occurs first.

A 10-year warranty covers the Spectre’s battery and roadside assistance includes vehicle collection if the battery is drained.

If a parallel universe exists where a customer opts for a stock-standard 2024 Rolls-Royce Spectre with no extras whatsoever, they shouldn’t be too perturbed with the standard features list.

That’s because the Spectre includes premium single-tone leather upholstery across the cabin, with heated, ventilated and massaging power-adjustable front seats and an 18-speaker Bespoke Audio system built-in house by Rolls that pumps out incredibly high-fidelity sound. Regular cars will never be the same…

The massive rear-hinged doors feature push-button, power-operated closing functionality (because they’re incredibly heavy), concealed umbrellas plus the usual odds and sods like cup holders, a glove box and so on.

Black cloth headlining and Royal Walnut or Blackwood open-pore timber veneers across the dashboard are also gratis, as is quad-zone climate control, while on the outside the land yacht rolls on 22-inch polished aero alloy wheels.

A retractable theft-proof Spirit of Ecstasy is also part of the package, naturally.

If you adhere to the ‘bigger is better’ argument when it comes to safety, the 2024 Rolls-Royce Spectre will pique your interest.

Tipping the scales at a corpulent 2890kg and measuring 5475mm long, the big Brit can bully just about any other passenger vehicle on the road into keeping their distance. And let’s face it, most road users will be keen to avoid a prang with such a costly object.

According to Rolls, the Spectre has just four airbags but comes with loads of advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS), such as autonomous steering via lane change assist, active lane centring and lane departure with active steering, not to mention adaptive cruise control and autonomous emergency braking (AEB).

Adaptive LED headlights and swivelling forward and rear-facing cameras are part of the package, as are several other camera systems, part of a surround-view 360-degree parking system.

No independent safety authority has crash-tested the Spectre because, well, it would probably bankrupt them; you have to crush three cars to attain the relevant data…

The 2024 Rolls-Royce Spectre is billed as the brand’s most advanced, high-tech and connected car to date – but you wouldn’t know it.

Twin digital screens have excellent visual acuity but are neither oversized nor flamboyant in any way and the overriding elements that draw the eye are traditional, high-end materials such as leather, timber and polished metal.

Rolls-Royce reckons there’s seven kilometres of cabling behind the scenes and more than 25,000 sub-functions its AI brain can compute, but it’s in practice it’s all incredibly intuitive.

If no one told you about the insane high-tech hardware and software back-end (which also controls powertrain and chassis functions, but more on that later), you’d think Rolls-Royce hadn’t modernised a thing.

The central touch-screen has impressively sharp visuals and is easy to use, plus there’s wireless Android Auto and Apple CarPlay built-in and verbal commands can be used to operate car functions as well.

You’ve got a head-up display that looks great and has all the relevant driving intel. The digital instrument cluster doesn’t innovate in any particular way but shows that a simple, minimalist layout can work wonders for cabin ambience.

Dual USB-C ports and a wireless phone charger are welcome and the British brand’s Whispers app allows for remote car monitoring and functionality from a smartphone.

The iconic British car-maker is synonymous with silky-smooth, whisper-quiet V12 engines, but the 2024 Rolls-Royce Spectre changes all this.

Indeed, the brand’s first-ever EV is propelled by a pair of separately excited synchronous motors, combining to mete out 430kW and 900Nm.

Despite its almost three-tonne mass, the e-motors can propel the Spectre from 0-100km/h in 4.5 seconds.

Traditionalists may lament the loss of the lusty V12 combustion engine, but the Spectre’s powertrain certainly doesn’t suffer from lag or driveline delay and is virtually silent.

A single-speed transmission ensures uninterrupted power delivery while the all-wheel drive configuration improves grip and roadholding.

The whole shebang suits the Rolls-Royce like jam and cream on scones and creates one of the quietest cabin experiences in the modern era.

The dual electric motors are energised by a massive 102kWh lithium-ion battery pack that weighs around 700kg.

Using the WLTP test cycle, the claim is a 530km cruising range, but in the real world the 2024 Rolls-Royce Spectre will manage around 450km.

More would be possible with careful use, but let’s face it, for long journeys most Spectre owners are using the helicopter or the jet.

Rolls-Royce says it’ll take your personal assistant 34 minutes to recharge the Spectre from 10-80 per cent using a DC fast-charger, with a maximum rate of 195kW.

But really, how many Rolls-Royce owners will park their car at a public charger? More likely is that owners will get an 11kWh wallbox-type charger installed at home or work, where it’ll take around 11 hours respectively to charge from 0-90 per cent.

Piloting a $1.12-million battery-electric 2024 Rolls-Royce Spectre is as intimidating as meeting the love-of-your-life’s parents for the first time, its colossal size and cost making it just as imposing as a disapproving in-law.

After 10 minutes behind the wheel, though, it all starts to gel and doesn’t feel half as large or unwieldy as its physique suggests.

Any reservations around whether an electric powertrain would be appropriate in a Roller are dismissed with the flippancy of a Donald Trump rebuttal upon gently pressing the accelerator pedal.

Simply put, the twin-motor system propels the three-tonne brick toward the horizon with vehemence.

It’s compellingly powerful but always smooth and never neck-snappingly violent like some EVs, which suits the car’s character just as propitiously as the much-loved V12.

At the other end of the scale, the recuperative braking does a top job washing off speed, and apart from its considerable size, guiding the big British barge around the city and surrounding suburbs is eminently pleasant.

The four-wheel steering system reduces its turning circle and makes the Spectre surprisingly easy to navigate tighter environs, while air suspension and adaptive dampers conspire to deliver the sort of smooth ride quality that old men whimsically reminisce about in excited but hushed tones. It truly is memorable.

Dual cameras mounted at the top of the windscreen scan the road ahead and can decouple the anti-roll bars, ensuring independent vertical movement of each wheel, so it all but glides over road surfaces, smooth or rough.

The chassis isn’t perfect, as sharper, slower-speed hits sometimes reverberate subtly through the suspension, a consequence of the giant 23-inch rims and low-profile Pirelli rubber.

Driven with a bit more venom on winding roads, the Spectre’s advanced and highly adjustable suspension array delivers good body control through corners, but the steering is best described as relaxed – great when cruising but not suited to spirited driving.

Hopefully a Spectre Black Badge version will remedy this.

Perhaps the most impressive part of the drive experience is just how quiet the Spectre is. I’ll never forget the first few minutes of my maiden voyage after collecting the car from Rolls-Royce Melbourne. The silence was profound.

At first, it’s a little peculiar, with only the faintest outside noises intruding into the cabin – an irate tram ding-ding here, a car honk there – but it makes the Spectre possibly the quietest Rolls-Royce ever made.

In a word, schmick. It’s safe to say that most people who plonk down in any of the 2024 Rolls-Royce Spectre’s cushy seats will be spellbound.

From the moment you open the huge 1.5-metre-long driver’s door there’s a sense of occasion: the supple leather covering the seats and doors and dashboard are sensational, the open-pore wood veneers are a tactile delight and the polished metal air vents with organ flute pull-stops are enthralling to manipulate.

Don’t get me started on the plush-pile lambswool carpets…

But what truly makes the experience special is understanding where and how the materials are sourced and the way in which Rolls-Royce artisans hand-craft the vast majority of them.

Despite the mind-melting number of manhours required to piece together the interior and the rapacious decadence on show, there’s a sense of humility and simplicity to the cabin design.

It would have been tempting for Rolls-Royce to take the ultra-modern route and festoon it with digital splendour, but I’m glad this wasn’t the end result.

I reckon the experience is far richer when you can spend more time admiring the handiwork and material quality rather than trying to program some advanced AI-driven navigation system or tweaking the car’s suspension and powertrain settings.

Make no mistake, the Spectre is a supercomputer on wheels, but it doesn’t feel like it, handling all the minutiae in the background, without occupants really being aware of it.

And ultimately, that is luxury distilled – not having to lift a finger.

If you have the financial wherewithal to seal the deal on the 2024 Rolls-Royce Spectre, then yes, this is a highly recommended purchase.

And if you can’t afford one, best to find a filthy-rich friend, lover or long-lost relative who can.

Perhaps the more pertinent question isn’t whether or not you should buy one, but whether Rolls-Royce’s legacy as the maker of the world’s finest cars is still intact after abandoning combustion power for electricity.

Because, let’s face it, whether it admits it or not, Rolls-Royce represents hedonism, not sustainability.

But for all that, the Spectre is a remarkable interpretation of the modern motor car that successfully blends the best of the new and old worlds and sets the benchmark for top-end luxury cars.

2024 Rolls-Royce Spectre at a glance:
Price: $770,000 (plus on-road costs)
Available: Now
Powertrain: Twin separately excited synchronous motors
Output: 430kW/900Nm
Transmission: Single-speed reduction gear
Battery: 102kWh lithium-ion
Range: 530km (WLTP)
Energy consumption: 22.2kWh/100km (WLTP)
Safety rating: Not tested