Spectre, Rolls-Royce’s genre-defining all-electric super coupé, has now covered almost two million kilometres as it completes the third phase of the most rigorous testing programme ever devised in the marque’s 118-year history. This has already surpassed every Rolls-Royce testing programme before it – and it is still far from over.
Spectre is currently undergoing extreme hot weather tests in two locations in South Africa: Augrabies in the Northern Cape; and Franschhoek, the ‘French Corner’ in the Western Cape winelands. The stable yet contrasting climates provide some of the finest summer-weather driving in the world, with dry and extremely hot conditions in the north and more humid, Mediterranean-style, conditions in the south. At its hottest, temperatures can exceed 50°C, while the southern region hosts a great variety of surfaces and terrains, including twisting country roads replete with gravel, dust and dirt. Truly testing conditions, by any measure.
During this stage, engineers are observing and refining every system, hardware item and software protocol that has been developed over the course of almost two million kilometres of continuous testing. Only through such painstaking assessments can Rolls-Royce’s technical experts achieve the exacting levels of ride refinement that are so central to the experience beloved by clients, and successfully translate the marque’s defining ‘Magic Carpet Ride’ to the new all-electric paradigm.
Throughout Spectre’s testing, each of the motor car’s 25,000 separate performance-related functions have been meticulously tailored to deliver a quintessentially Rolls-Royce experience. The refinements being made now follow the principles of ‘marginal gains’, in which individual, very small and incremental adjustments cumulatively produce a significant overall improvement. Though widely used and proven in elite sport and high-level business, this theory is being used during Spectre testing to an unprecedented extent, as part of the wider validation process characterised internally as the Rolls-Royce Finishing School.
Examples of the meticulous attention-to-detail that Spectre prototypes are being subjected to are manifold but often impossible to quantify, as they represent the judgement and instinct of the marque’s peerless and long-standing engineering elite. For example, over 1500 hours have already been dedicated to finessing the car’s regenerative braking to ensure it feels effortless but present. Data-logging equipment processes sensor inputs generated by this braking force, to ensure that adjustments do not compromise the overall serenity of Spectre under any driving conditions. However, it is only the experience and judgement of long-standing Rolls-Royce engineers that can ensure the motor car will, when testing is completed, meet the inimitable standards required to deliver an elevated expression of the Rolls-Royce experience.
Similarly, anti-roll stabilisation is being tuned to reflect the dynamic promise of Spectre’s dramatic super-coupé design while still delivering on the marque’s hallmark ‘Magic Carpet Ride’ qualities. In South Africa, this testing has specific significance as high temperatures can alter the hardness of rubber suspension components, providing a parameter that is bookended by the results of extreme cold weather testing.
This exhaustive approach has also been applied to ensuring the correct colour-quality and brightness for the theatre of light that is prompted by opening Spectre’s coach door. To ensure a sense of harmony in the cabin, whatever the external light conditions, all internal illuminations, including the marque’s celebrated Bespoke Starlight Headliner, instrument cluster and SPIRIT interface, must be perfectly coordinated. This requires detailed analysis of a global range of sunlight exposure and types, to ensure consistency of colour-quality wherever in the world Spectre is.
