Electric Rolls Royce Phantom dropped

Electric Rolls Royce - not being built

Everyone’s at it – building electric cars, that is – and Rolls Royce are no different. They even put together an electric Rolls Royce Phantom for the Geneva Motor Show earlier this year.

And in many ways you can almost see the logic in an electric Rolls Royce. Well, as much logic as there is in running any car on batteries, unless it never needs to go further than a few miles a day.

But an electric Rolls Royce could make sense for the many Rolls Royces that never move beyond chauffeuring the high and mighty around a city like London. For there is logic in having no emissions at the point of use in a city, no noise from the engine and instant torque to scoot in to gaps that develop.

So Rolls Royce bolted together the Rolls Royce Phantom 102EX as a test bed for electric gubbins in a Roller. They equipped it with a pair of electric motors rated at 145 kWh and possibly the biggest lithium-ion battery bank on four wheels.

Even then, it took the electric Roller 8 seconds to get to 60mph, and that thumping great bank of batteries housed under the bonnet would take between 8 and 20 hours to recharge.

Rolls Royce planned on touring the 102EX round the world to gauge the opinion of customers before deciding whether or not to pursue a BEV Rolls. And it seems that Rolls Royce customers have given a bug thumbs down to the electric car.

Rolls-Royce CEO Torsten Mueller-Oetvoes said that the company now has no plans to produce an EV at present, but went on to say:

Let’s wait and see what our customers are telling us, but hybrids have a certain capability to deliver both electric driving combined with a normal combustion engine, and that might be a solution.

He also added that not a single customer has approached Rolls Royce asking for an electric car.

Which should tell Rolls all they need to know.

By Cars UK