Rolls-Royce Is Not Interested in Hybrids or Autonomy. Got it?

All-electric or bust, says the British luxury automaker.

byChris Tsui|
Rolls-Royce Is Not Interested in Hybrids or Autonomy. Got it?
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Electric cars are the future. You know it, I know it, and evidently, Rolls-Royce knows it as well. Because of this, the ultra-luxury automaker is saying it has no interest in the underdeveloped halfway house that is hybrid technology. All-electric or bust.

Speaking to Autocar at the Goodwood Festival of Speed, Rolls-Royce CEO Torsten Müller-Otvös concedes that electricity is the way of the future, but will only be adopted by Rolls-Royce once it is fully developed and worthy of its particular clientele.

"Electrification is the way forward – and there will be no in between steps for us like hybridization. It is the propulsion system for the future, make no error. There is a time, nobody can predict when, when there will be no combustion engines. That will take a long, long time, but it will happen."

Müller-Otvös goes on to say that Rolls-Royce customers are not looking for bleeding-edge, revolutionary technology when they get into one of his cars. Rather, absolutely flawless and unbridled luxury is the name of the game and thus, there is no room for unproven tech in the Rolls-Royce engineering department.

As for that whole self-driving, autonomous cars thing? It'll come, but the RR boss, in a moment of ballerific self-awareness, reminds us that Rolls-Royce buyers have had that for decades now. "For our customers, it’s not really a requirement, because many have chauffeurs. So for that reason, it exists already. I haven’t had a single customer say to me, ‘Torsten, when is the autonomous Rolls-Royce coming?'"

Touché.

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