Rolls-Royce Black Badge Spectre Review

Introduction

Rolls-Royce has enjoyed a fantastic revival over the past quarter-century.

While traditionally a manufacturer serving an older customer base, it was in danger of becoming too old-fashioned for even them.

1998 saw BMW take over – to the horror of traditionalists who didn’t want the centrepiece of British car manufacturing owned by ‘ze Germans’.

But BMW breathed new desperately-needed life into Rolls-Royce and, after a five-year wait, the Phantom was launched to revive its fortunes.

The fact that the Phantom is still going strong nearly 25 years later tells you all you need to know.

Since then, BMW has launched additional models, including the Wraith, Ghost, and Spectre, as well as the now-discontinued Dawn convertible and the Cullinan SUV.

All of them retained the elegance that Rolls-Royce customers expect – but with modern touches which brought the brand into the 21st century, appealing to the next generation of customers.

Nearly a decade ago, Rolls-Royce appealed to an even younger generation by unveiling ‘Black Badge’ editions, with added attitude and ostentatiousness.

The Spectre coupe was launched in 2023 and shares the same platform as the Phantom and Cullinan.

But it’s significantly different: it’s the first fully electric Rolls-Royce in modern times.

So, can it still appeal despite the loss of the traditional V12?

We’ve taken one for a drive to see what it’s like.

At A Glance

The Black Badge Spectre looks as eye-catching as you think.

Of course, the classic large grille and Spirit of Ecstasy dominate the front, with thin horizontal LED strips at the sides, sitting above rounded, rectangular block headlights.

Around the sides, comparisons with the Bentley Continental GT will be inevitable, due to the sharp slope of the roofline towards the rear, while a crease towards the bottom of the doors and a meaty side skirt complete the look.

At the rear, the sweeping backside dominates, with a large, thick boot that noticeably bulges out from the rest of the back end, with taillights contained in a block on each side.

Admittedly, the rear takes a bit of getting used to, but the front is unmistakably a Rolls-Royce – aggressive, classy, sophisticated and showy.

Key Features

You won’t find things as common as trim levels on a Rolls-Royce.

Instead, there’s a standard spec – but just about everything is customisable (or “commissionable”, as Rolls-Royce says) and the list of optional extras is, frankly, insane.

The Black Badge Spectre gets 23-inch five-spoke forged aluminium alloys, a 10.1-inch BMW-derived infotainment system with Apple CarPlay, Android Auto, DAB radio, voice control, a spatial surround sound system, and a 12.3-inch digital instrument display.

Also included are electrically adjustable heated and ventilated front seats with memory function, wireless phone charging, 256-colour ambient lighting, and plush leather upholstery, plus four-zone climate control.

With no combustion engine to worry about, you’ll be reassured to know that not only is the performance still incredible, but this is the most powerful Rolls-Royce ever made.

Dual-electric motors provide all-wheel drive and 668PS in the Black Badge edition – that’s 92PS more than you’ll get in the standard Spectre.

Range & Batteries

The Spectre Black Badge is fitted with a 102kWh (usable) battery, good enough for an official range of 329 miles.

Admittedly, you won’t achieve that in practice – our test drive suggested we’d run out of juice at around 255 miles, which is okay, but nothing special.

Performance & Drive

Rolls-Royces aren’t for racing off the line at traffic lights, but they’re intended to have plenty of ‘power in reserve’.

Nevertheless, if getting somewhere in a hurry is your thing, you'll be delighted to hear that 0-60mph takes just 4.1 seconds, with around 75% of the power being sent to the back wheels.

And, if you engage the enthralling-sounding ‘Infinity’ mode, it’ll do it 0.4 seconds quicker than that. That’s impressive – even more so when you realise that it weighs almost three tonnes.

It does an impressive job of delivering power gradually, so while still terrifyingly quick, the experience isn’t as aggressive as in an equivalent performance car, nor does it induce wheelspin.

In fact, it's the most sophisticated way we've ever managed to get to 60mph quickly.

Push the throttle at any speed, and the power comes with a smooth calmness you wouldn’t get in other vehicles.

And, of course, smooth and calm are key, even in a Rolls-Royce with attitude – ride quality and comfort are vital factors to creating a relaxing experience.

It’s about as close to perfect as you can get.

Riding over lumpy, broken roads was a fittingly uneventful experience, almost as if the car retracted its wheels and floated over them.

Of course, you can tell when the road surface isn’t pristine, but against a hard-riding sports suspension in a performance saloon, there’s just no comparison at all – it’s more like moving over a small wave, rather than crashing through potholes.

Admittedly, there’s a bit less give in the Black Badge edition we’re driving – the chassis is 30% stiffer for that added bit of attitude – but even that doesn’t distort the cosseting ride quality. Rolls-Royce calls it the “Magic Carpet” for a reason, after all.

Around corners, the Black Badge is engaging to drive, controlling body roll and feeling stable and planted.

The steering weights up well, with precision, upping your confidence levels considerably. Granted, you can feel the weight around the bends – this is no carbon fibre-filled lightweight sports car, after all (although you can have carbon fibre as part of the cabin design), but understeer is ironed out by the car's onboard systems. That includes rear-wheel steering, which enhances the experience.

No car weighing almost three tonnes has any right to feel this untroubled around a quick bend. It perhaps shouldn’t be surprising – Rolls-Royce says the difference between the Black Badge Spectre and standard car is more pronounced than in other vehicles in its range.

And, while the difference isn’t as noticeable in most situations, a fast, twisty road is where you’ll find the contrast, particularly in Infinity Mode, which optimises power delivery, steering weight and improves accelerator response.

Wind and road noise are superbly drowned out by soundproofing – and with no engine note, it’s utterly serene.

The braking is also very predictable and consistent, though set up to be a gradual, elegant event, and only stomping hard on the pedal delivers its (less elegant) full, true stopping power.

You can engage regenerative braking at the push of a button, activating ‘B’-mode to enable one-pedal driving.

Charging

The Black Badge Spectre charges at a maximum rate of 195kW DC, so a 10-80% top-up takes around half an hour.

You'll achieve the same result in about five and a half hours using a home wallbox, although that’s at the car’s maximum 22kW AC charging speed, which most homes can’t support (7kW is more typical).

Running Costs & Emissions

With no emissions, it’s never been cheaper to run a Rolls-Royce in modern times, especially if you charge up at home.

Road tax is no longer free for pure electric cars, so the first year will cost you just £10, and £195 per year thereafter (subject to annual increases).

On the plus side, there’ll likely not have been a cheaper Roller to have as a company car, as its zero emissions put it in the bottom band for Benefit-in-Kind tax.

Rolls-Royce doesn’t appear in many reliability surveys, but it’s about on a par with BMW (which has improved in recent years).

Interior & Technology

The Black Badge Spectre's interior is the same as the standard car's, with one key difference: it's de-chromed (or, rather, the chrome is coloured in black). As a result, like the exterior, it creates more of an urban, ominous vibe.

However, it’s suitably brightened up by a bunch of colours that you wouldn’t associate with Rolls-Royce’s traditional, upper-class, older customer base: you can have red or pink upholstery if you want.

In fact, there are loads of flashy colours, including fluorescent lime green – and you can choose two of them and customise the bits you want in each shade.

So, fancy a lemon-yellow interior with sky blue on the seats’ edges? Rolls-Royce can make it happen.

The dashboard has a fairly flat top, apart from a slight bulge on the driver’s side to accommodate the digital instruments. The centre console features a large cubby, an infotainment rotary controller, and various buttons.

It’s bathed in luxury, with a build quality that appears unmatched.

The infotainment screen, embedded within the dashboard, offers sophisticated yet contemporary graphics and fonts, an ultra-responsive touchscreen, and an intuitive menu layout.

It’s arguably the best system going – because it’s lifted from BMW’s Operating System 8 (but re-badged as ‘SPIRIT’ in Rolls-Royces) – why change a winning formula? It’s excellent, after all.

The screen can’t be hidden, like in the Phantom, but it’s pleasant enough to keep in sight and can be controlled via a lovely-to-use, well-damped rotary dial on the centre console.

The infotainment system isn’t as feature-rich as BMW’s, though, which sounds like a negative. However, that’s because you don’t control the climate control system through the screen – instead, physical controls sit beneath, making things even more convenient.

Voice control can be activated at the touch of a button on the steering wheel, making it even easier to access menus and perform functions.

The digital instruments behind the wheel are similarly impressive and, in the Black Badge version, offer colour combinations and alternative layouts not provided in the standard car, as well as more conventional layouts to please traditionalists.

The balance of contemporary design and digitisation with classic sophistication and analogue features is perfectly executed, with modern amenities such as the screens blending perfectly with retro dials, buttons and air vents.

Everything feels expensive and premium – and it should – but it even makes pressing buttons a joyful experience.

Nice touches, including the ambient lighting and the ‘Shooting Star’ headliner (also featured on the doors), create a spectacular ambience, bathing the cabin in a starry night sky vibe.

Rolls-Royce also offers an app called ‘Whispers’, allowing you to control charging, check battery levels and perform numerous other functions remotely.

Practicality & Boot Space

Finding a comfortable driving position is pleasingly effortless, as just about everything is done for you at the touch of a button, even if you don’t have a butler to hand.

Finding a comfy driving position is a piece of cake, thanks to features that adjust automatically. The two aluminium doors hinge backwards for easy access, but the wide opening can be challenging in tight parking spaces. They close themselves, though, and are referred to as 'effortless doors'.

The seating position is slightly higher than you might expect, but this aids forward visibility, which is decent thanks to a large windscreen, although the pillars aren’t the thinnest. They're massively thick at the back, thanks to the natural shape of the car, but parking sensors, along with a 360-degree camera, mitigate any inconvenience.

There’s lots of room in the front – not as much as in a Phantom, but more than enough to relax and waft along, bathed in luxury – so legroom and headroom aren’t an issue, even for the tallest of people.

In the back, the sloping roofline eats into the headroom slightly, but the vast majority of rear seat occupants should be fine, plus there are only two rear seats, so there's plenty of sideways space to sprawl out in, and enough legroom.

Boot space measures 380 litres – the rear seats can't be folded down, so that's all you'll get, but this is unlikely to be a car you’ll take to buy new flat-pack furniture from certain large Swedish warehouses.

There is some underfloor storage to put charging cables, though.

Cabin storage is, as you might expect, plentiful, with large door bins, a big glove compartment, tray tables and a large centre console cubby.

Safety

Unsurprisingly, Rolls-Royce hasn’t given a Black Badge Spectre (or any Spectre, or any Rolls-Royce, for that matter) to Euro NCAP for crash testing.

And, as the Spectre is based on a platform exclusive to Rolls-Royce, there isn’t really an equivalent model from parent company BMW that would give an indication as to the Spectre’s safety credentials.

Nevertheless, for what it’s worth, 16 of the last 18 BMWs tested over the past decade earned a five-star rating, including its last four.

BMW’s average ratings for the past decade are 90% for adult occupants, 85% for children, and 73% for safety assists. Common sense dictates that a Rolls-Royce is sturdy enough to achieve similar or better results.

On the Black Badge Spectre, you get automatic emergency braking, adaptive cruise control, lane-keeping assist, as well as Parking Assistant Plus and blind-spot detection, all included.

Options

This is a little tricky, as nearly everything on the Black Badge Spectre is an optional extra – the whole point of having a Rolls-Royce is that it's entirely customised to your specifications.

Two-tone paint, a matte ‘iced’ black or silver satin bonnet, individual colours for shoulders and fenders, alternative alloy wheels, black calliper colours, dual-tone wheels, and even a halo beneath the Spirit of Ecstasy are just some of the choices.

Illuminating grilles, bespoke interiors, coloured seat piping – even the thickness (and, yes, the colour) of the steering wheel, not to mention the style of analogue clock in the cabin, can all be customised.

Want the speakers in gold? You got it. Want pink illumination on the door sills? Sorted. Lambswool foot mats? No sweat. Fluorescent orange key fob? Consider it done.

For crying out loud, you can even choose from around ten different colours for the handle of the umbrella, which pops out of the car’s doors.

This is just a taster – the tip of the iceberg in terms of customisability.

And, if there’s something you want that isn’t listed, Rolls-Royce will probably find a way of including it for you, at a price.

Rival Cars

This one’s tricky, too, because the Rolls-Royce Black Badge Spectre is in a class of its own – it really has no direct rivals whatsoever.

Yes, there’s the Bentley Continental GT, but that’s only a plug-in hybrid and very much still has a lump of an engine (although it’ll become all-electric in 2030).

There are EVs out there – the Mercedes-Maybach EQS, but that’s an SUV– and the Rimac Nevera and Lotus Evija, but they’re supercars.

Aston Martin had been tipped to bring an all-electric Lagonda saloon to the market, which would likely compete, but that has been scrapped, although Aston is working on a bunch of other EVs.

The BMW i7 is really the closest thing to resembling the Spectre, but even BMW’s brand can’t compete with the luxurious reputation of Rolls-Royce.

Verdict & Next Steps

The Spectre may be lacking an engine, but it delivers a premium Rolls-Royce experience just as well as any V12-equipped predecessor.

If you want one to drive, then the Black Badge is definitely superior to the standard Spectre, but you'll gain little if you're leasing one as a back-seat passenger.

The handling around faster bends is excellent in the Black Badge, and the sheer number of customisable options outstrips that of the standard car.

And, given the options on offer, the Black Badge will appeal to those seeking a true luxury car that's better balanced towards its attitude as opposed to outright elegant sophistication.

The electric range isn’t as impressive as plenty of other electric cars, and the doors are so wide it’ll be difficult to park. But, like the standard Spectre, the Black Badge still retains sophistication in abundance, with a level of refinement that’s beyond the reach of just about any other manufacturer on the planet.

Where to next?

View latest Rolls-Royce Spectre lease deals

Call us on 0118 3048 688 or hit the green 'Enquire' button for more details.

Looking for a great leasing deal? Check out our incredible range of Special Offers and Lease Deals. 

New Coupe? Read our latest Reviews and find the right model for you.

Want to know more about leasing? Take a look at our comprehensive Leasing Guides.

Interested in everything motoring? Why not catch up on all the latest Car Leasing News.

**Score based on Select’s unique meta score analysis, taking into account the UK’s top leading independent car website reviews of the Rolls-Royce Spectre