​Watch Ginny's walkaround video of the Rolls-Royce Spectre here.​

It looks as though the world’s finest car is going to be electric. Rolls-Royce has revealed the new Spectre – the first of its pure electric models. The company has committed to making its entire product portfolio fully electric by 2030.

The two-door coupe will cost around £300,000 when it arrives in late 2023 and is a true technological tour-de-force.

Rolls has already dabbled in electric powertrains in both its 102EX and 103EX concepts. The Goodwood-based firm says that these cars prompted questions from customers as to when a production version would be arriving, as electric power is seen as the ‘perfect fit’ for a Rolls-Royce.

Although we still don’t know many of the technical details it is clear that the Spectre will borrow most of its battery and drivetrain from the new BMW i7 and iX ranges. It means the Spectre has a very big battery with around 110kWh, and Rolls has confirmed a range of around 320 miles. There will be decent fast charging speeds too, so your chauffeur won’t have to spend too long waiting at the service station.

The two motors produce a massive 900Nm of torque and 576bhp. It is enough to move the 2,975kg Spectre from 0-60mph in 4.4 seconds. To put that into perspective, that’s more than twice the weight of a MINI Electric. The batteries alone weigh 700kg.

Rear hinged doors open to reveal interior packed with tech and luxury

The car does have weight-saving features though. Sophisticated extruded aluminium sections integrate the battery into the structure of the car enabling it to be 30% stiffer than any previous Rolls-Royce. Besides stopping creaks and rattles, it also allows the suspension to be more effective.

It has also allowed engineers to place the floor halfway between the sill structures rather than on top or underneath them. A channel has been created for wiring and climate control pipework between the battery and the floor, with the battery mounted underneath, providing a perfectly smooth underfloor profile.

Using high-speed computer processing capabilities, the Spectre uses a system called ‘Planar’ to control the suspension. It can decouple the car’s anti-roll bars allowing each of the 23-inch wheels to act independently, preventing the rocking motion that occurs when one side of a vehicle hits an undulation in the road. This also reduces high-frequency ride imperfections caused by shortcomings in road surface quality.

Once a corner is identified as imminent by the GPS and cameras, the Planar system recouples the components and stiffens the dampers, the four-wheel steering system is then prepared for activation. Under cornering, 18 sensors are monitored, and steering, braking, power delivery and suspension parameters are adjusted so that Spectre remains stable.

Computers use GPS to prepare the car's suspension for corners

To ensure it works, the Spectre is being subjected to a journey of more than 2.5 million kilometres, simulating more than 400 years of use for a Rolls-Royce.

The look of the car is clearly a Rolls-Royce, but concessions have been made to aerodynamics. From the front, Spectre’s split headlights are intersected by the widest grille ever fitted to a Rolls.

Along with an aero-tuned Spirit of Ecstasy figurine – itself the product of 830 combined hours of design modelling and wind tunnel testing – the grille enhances the Spectre’s drag coefficient, which at just 0.25cd is Rolls-Royce’s most aerodynamic car ever.

Inside the Spectre is as luxurious as you’d expect and includes an ‘Illuminated Fascia’. It incorporates the Spectre nameplate surrounded by a cluster of over 5,500 stars on the passenger side of the dashboard. The illuminations are invisible when the car is not in operation.

As you may expect, there are almost infinite personalisation options for colour, trim and technology which means very few Spectres will leave the Goodwood factory looking alike. - or costing anything close to the car's £300,000 starting price.

The Spectre won't have the market to itself for long. Bentley has already promised it is moving to electrification and will use tech shared with Audi. 

The dashboard features illuminated stars and a digital dashboard