![Rolls-Royce Spectre super coupe passes significant milestone in latest testing program [Images]](https://i0.wp.com/electrek.co/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2023/02/Rolls-Royce-Spectre-release.jpeg?resize=1200,628&quality=82&strip=all&ssl=1)
Rolls-Royce Spectre super coupe passes significant milestone in latest testing program [Images]
Rolls-Royce’s first fully electric vehicle, Spectre, is one of the most highly anticipated EVs of the year, not to mention THE MOST anticipated Rolls Royce in the luxury brand’s 118-year history.
Before its release later this year, the Rolls-Royce Spectre has covered over 2.5 million kilometers (about 1.2 million miles) as it finishes up testing.
Rolls-Royce is known for its elegant-looking vehicles that can turn heads on any city block. However, the British luxury automaker is entering a “bold new chapter” after unveiling its first fully electric vehicle, the Rolls-Royce Spectre.
Dating back to 1900, Rolls-Royce’s founder, Charles Royce, proclaimed, “the electric car is perfectly noiseless and clean. There is no smell or vibration, and they should become very useful when fixed charging stations can be arranged.”
Well, fixed charging stations are rolling out in abundance thanks to the NEVI program’s $5 billion in funding to create a national network of EV chargers and many other public and private initiatives.
Mr. Royce could see where the auto industry was headed over 100 years ago. It just took longer than it should have with lobbying and campaigns against fully electric vehicles.
After promising to deliver a 100% electric vehicle by the end of the decade, Rolls-Royce followed through, officially releasing the Spectre in October 2022.
Rolls-Royce Motor Cars CEO, Torsten Müller-Ötvös, explains:
Spectre has already secured its place as the most anticipated Rolls-Royce in history. This remarkable and transformative motor car represents the beginning of the marque’s bold electric era as well as our unquestionable technological leadership of the super-luxury space.
Müller-Ötvös added the Spectre is undergoing various testing ahead of its release later this year to ensure its first EV can carry the brand into a new era.
Rolls-Royce Spectre passes critical tests ahead of its release
The Rolls-Royce Spectre has covered almost two million kilometers (about 1.2 million miles) as it wraps up the “most rigorous testing program” ever developed during the brand’s 118-year history – and it’s still ongoing.
Dr. Mihiar Ayoubi, director of engineering at Rolls-Royce Motor Cars, explains:
The reason for our extraordinary and restless global testing process is simple: there has never been a motor car like Spectre before. As the first all-electric Rolls-Royce, Spectre represents not just a new paradigm in our technology, but the entire future direction of our brand.
The Spectre is in South Africa undergoing extreme heat tests at two different locations, with dry conditions in the north and more humid conditions in the south.
In the north, temperatures can exceed 122 degrees Fahrenheit (122 degrees Celsius), while the south offers various terrains, including twisty country roads filled with gravel, dust, and dirt.
During the program, Rolls-Royce engineers inspect every aspect of the Spectre to ensure it can achieve the exact levels of refinement to give that “magic carpet ride” customers are seeking.
The luxury brand is looking for “marginal gains,” like athletes and high-level business people, to produce a significant improvement over time, a similar concept to compounding.
After testing in South Africa is finished, Rolls-Royce says the Spectre’s testing program will be about 80% complete as it heads to its final testing phase before its release. The first Rolls-Royce EV deliveries are planned for the fourth quarter of 2023.
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If you’ve ever wondered what happens when you combine a fruit cart, a cargo bike, and a Piaggio Ape all in one vehicle, now you’ve got your answer. I submit, for your approval, this week’s feature for the Awesomely Weird Alibaba Electric Vehicle of the Week column – and it’s a beautiful doozie.
Feast your eyes on this salad slinging, coleslaw cruising, tuber taxiing produce chariot!
I think this electric vegetable trike might finally scratch the itch long felt by many of my readers. It seems every time I cover an electric trike, even the really cool ones, I always get commenters poo-poo-ing it for having two wheels in the rear instead of two wheels in the front. Well, here you go, folks!
Designed with two front wheels for maximum stability, this trike keeps your cucumbers in check through every corner. Because trust me, you don’t want to hit a pothole and suddenly be juggling peaches like you’re in Cirque du Soleil: Farmers Market Edition.
To avoid the extra cost of designing a linked steering system for a pair of front wheels, the engineers who brought this salad shuttle to life simply side-stepped that complexity altogether by steering the entire fixed front end. I’ve got articulating electric tractors that steer like this, and so if it works for a several-ton work machine, it should work for a couple hundred pounds of cargo bike.
Featuring a giant cargo bed up front with four cascading fruit baskets set up for roadside sales, this cargo bike is something of a blank slate. Sure, you could monetize grandma’s vegetable garden, or you could fill it with your own ideas and concoctions. Our exceedingly talented graphics wizard sees it as the perfect coffee and pastry e-bike for my new startup, The Handlebarista, and I’m not one to argue. Basically, the sky is the limit with a blank slate bike like this!
Sure, the quality doesn’t quite match something like a fancy Tern cargo bike. The rim brakes aren’t exactly confidence-inspiring, but at least there are three of them. And if they should all give out, or just not quite slow you down enough to avoid that quickly approaching brick wall, then at least you’ve got a couple hundred pounds of tomatoes as a tasty crumple zone.
The electrical system does seem a bit underpowered. With a 36V battery and a 250W motor, I don’t know if one-third of a horsepower is enough to haul a full load to the local farmer’s market. But I guess if the weight is a bit much for the little motor, you could always do some snacking along the way. On the other hand, all the pictures seem to show a non-electric version. So if this cart is presumably mobile on pedal power alone, then that extra motor assist, however small, is going to feel like a very welcome guest.
The $950 price is presumably for the electric version, since that’s what’s in the title of the listing, though I wouldn’t get too excited just yet. I’ve bought a LOT of stuff on Alibaba, including many electric vehicles, and the too-good-to-be-true price is always exactly that. In my experience, you can multiply the Alibaba price by 3-4x to get the actual landed price for things like these. Even so, $3,000-$4,000 wouldn’t be a terrible price, considering a lot of electric trikes stateside already cost that much and don’t even come with a quad-set of vegetable baskets on board!
I should also put my normal caveat in here about not actually buying one of these. Please, please don’t try to buy one of these awesome cargo e-trikes. This is a silly, tongue-in-cheek weekend column where I scour the ever-entertaining underbelly of China’s massive e-commerce site Alibaba in search of fun, quirky, and just plain awesomely weird electric vehicles. While I’ve successfully bought several fun things on the platform, I’ve also gotten scammed more than once, so this is not for the timid or the tight-budgeted among us.
That isn’t to say that some of my more stubborn readers haven’t followed in my footsteps before, ignoring my advice and setting out on their own wild journey. But please don’t be the one who risks it all and gets nothing in return. Don’t say I didn’t warn you; this is the warning.
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Environment
Podcast: Trump/GOP go after EV/solar, Tesla, Ford, GM EV sales, Electrek Formula Sun, and more
In the Electrek Podcast, we discuss the most popular news in the world of sustainable transport and energy. In this week’s episode, we discuss Trump’s Big Beautiful bill becoming law and going after EVs and solar, Tesla, Ford, and GM EV sales, Electrek Formula Sun, and more
Today’s episode is brought to you by Bosch Mobility Aftermarket—A global leader and trusted provider of automotive aftermarket parts. To celebrate Amazon Prime Day July 8th through 11th, Bosch Mobility is offering exclusive savings on must-have auto parts and tools. Learn more here.
The show is live every Friday at 4 p.m. ET on Electrek’s YouTube channel.
As a reminder, we’ll have an accompanying post, like this one, on the site with an embedded link to the live stream. Head to the YouTube channel to get your questions and comments in.
After the show ends at around 5 p.m. ET, the video will be archived on YouTube and the audio on all your favorite podcast apps:
We now have a Patreon if you want to help us avoid more ads and invest more in our content. We have some awesome gifts for our Patreons and more coming.
Here are a few of the articles that we will discuss during the podcast:
- Electrek FSGP 2025: New teams, new cars, same solar spirit
- Congress votes to send 2 million US jobs to China, increase deficit, energy costs
- Tesla (TSLA) confirms 384,000 deliveries in Q2 2025, right on expectations
- Tesla prototype sparks speculation: a Model Y, maybe slightly smaller
- Tesla launches Oasis Supercharger with solar farm and off-grid batteries
- Tesla unveils its LFP battery factory, claims it’s almost ready
- Here’s why Ford’s electric vehicle sales crashed by nearly a third in Q2
- The Chevy Equinox EV is GM’s breakout star, but that’s not the only surprise
- Xpeng launches G7, a new Tesla Model Y competitor for just $27,000
Here’s the live stream for today’s episode starting at 4:00 p.m. ET (or the video after 5 p.m. ET:
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