Reporter | Li Wenbo
Edit |
On September 29, ultra-luxury car manufacturer Rolls-Royce officially released its first all-electric mass production model, the "Spectre".
The car will begin road testing worldwide from now on. In order to bring the Shining to the level of Rolls-Royce's existing car manufacturing, the engineers designed the most demanding test project in history, and the cumulative mileage will reach a total of 2.5 million kilometers, which is equivalent to the total mileage of an average Rolls-Royce used for more than 400 years.
The Shining Road Test travels to various countries and regions around the world to be tested for various road conditions and terrains.
According to Rolls-Royce Automotive CEO Torsten Müller-Ötvös, the Shining will be available and delivered in the fourth quarter of 2023. At the same time, the Rolls-Royce product lineup will be fully electrified by 2030.
As the first pure electric model to be publicly sold, the Rolls-Royce Flash has too many clues and secrets to be mined.
The first is the car architecture.
The eighth-generation Mirage, which went on sale in 2017, uses Rolls-Royce's exclusive aluminum architecture. It is a flexible and variable vehicle architecture that supports both fuel and electric vehicles. The Shining is the first pure electric vehicle born on this exclusive architecture.
Unlike the existing platform sharing strategy of most car manufacturers, although Rolls-Royce belongs to the German BMW Group, The Shining has taken "tailor-made" as the main line of thinking at the beginning of the design, and only takes the experience of the BMW Group in some parts, electric drive systems and battery technology, and the rest is done by Rolls-Royce himself.
The second is the naming system.
Rolls-Royce's previous model names have a deep meaning and are highly in line with the brand's tonality, such as Phantom, Ghost and Wraith.
The same is true of spectre, which contains superior power and mysterious agility, creatures derived from fantasy worlds that make the world stand still.
Toston Muller Utfords said he has been asked "when Rolls-Royce launched its first electric car" for the past decade. The Shining was the first answer from rolls-Royce, who he was in charge of.
In the matter of the electrification of the car, Rolls-Royce is not the "soldiers and horses that the outside world imagines", but "too far ahead".
As early as 1900, Charles Rolls- and one of the founders of Rolls-Royce Automobiles had made predictions about electric vehicles in media interviews:
"Electric cars are noiseless, very clean, and there is no smell and vibration of fuel vehicles. If a fixed charging station can be arranged, the practicality of electric vehicles will be very impressive. But for now, I don't think electric cars have much practical value — at least not for many years to come. ”
Henry Rice, another founder of Rolls-Royce Motors, was one of the world's first power engineers, supplying electric motors to early cars and lighting roads and theatres in Liverpool.
Rolls-Royce's current CEO, Toston Müller Utre, also solemnly promised that Rolls-Royce would electrify within a decade.
From the existing strategy, Rolls-Royce's electrification initiatives can be distilled into three main directions:
First, launch a pure electric model within ten years (2020 to 2030);
Second, the model is purely electric drive and does not use hybrid;
Third, this is an orthodox, pure, unquestionable Rolls-Royce.
In the context of Rolls-Royce, the best example of the era of electric vehicles is: "Urban commuting and suburban travel are compatible."
In the process of electrification in modern times, Rolls-Royce launched the Mirage-based Experimental Electric Vehicle (EE) in 2011, code-named 102EX – a fully driverable, road-ready all-electric Rolls-Royce Phantom.
But the Mirage EE has no mass production plans, and its mission is to "experience the platform".
In 2016, coinciding with the 100th anniversary of its parent company, the BMW Group, Rolls-Royce launched the VISION NEXT 100 (103EX), a 5.9-meter-long, 1.6-meter-tall car based on a Rolls-Royce lightweight platform, powered by a dedicated pure electric drive system, and fully autonomous driving.
But the 103EX is also an experimental model, and there have never been plans for mass production.
In the era of the internal combustion engine, the Rolls-Royce engineering team used the most advanced technology of the time to transform the early automobiles from noisy, simple, and poorly comfortable vehicles to the jewels of industrial manufacturing. Rolls-Royce's position in the automotive industry remains unshakable to this day.
Among the ultra-luxury brands, Rolls-Royce was the first to announce the path of pure electric models. Obviously, Rolls-Royce, which has been on the throne for more than a century, chose to skip the hybrid stage and directly enter the era of pure electricity without hesitation, and its electrification ambition is by no means limited to one car, but the new throne of the "ultra-luxury electric vehicle" generation.