Rolls-Royce has built the most extraordinary electric vehicle yet, a mind-bogglingly luxurious car as smooth as it is big. But that isn?t enough to convince Rolls-Royce customers to buy one.
Rolls-Royce has been showing the 102EX Phantom Experimental Electric to many current Rolls owners, and so far the response has been, ?Very nice. But?? As is so often the case with electrics, range is the overriding concern. Rolls-Royce owners tend to live on the outskirts of town and aren?t sure the car?s 100-mile range would meet their daily needs, CEO Torsten Mueller-Oetvoes told Bloomberg. A gas-electric hybrid might be a better option, he said.
?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 said.
Rolls developed the 102EX because it knows it must augment the beautiful, but thirsty, V12 engines that power its land yachts. Customers have shown little concern for fuel economy and emissions ? the Phantom gets 11 city, 18 highway ? but regulators on both sides of the Atlantic have. Rolls knows it must respond.
Electrics make perfect sense. They?re smooth, silent and offer loads of torque ? hallmarks of Rolls-Royce automobiles. And given their six-figure pricetags, the added expense of the electric drivetrain is more easily absorbed. We?ve driven the 102EX and can say without reservation that it is an absolute marvel. But Mueller-Oetvoes says no one?s asking for one.
A hybrid wouldn?t be too difficult, given that BMW owns Rolls-Royce. We could see them riffing on the system in the Active Hybrid 7 and calling it a day.
Photo: Rolls-Royce
Source: http://www.wired.com/autopia/2011/06/an-electric-rolls-may-not-roll/
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