Rolls-Royce Ghost Could Go Fully Electric in Next Generation of Luxury Sedan: Report
Rolls-Royce is said to be constructing the foundation for its leap to electric power, which could come as early as 2023.
Rolls-Royce will reportedly turn the next iteration of its entry-level Ghost sedan into an electric ultra-luxury vehicle at some point in the next decade. It's unclear what exactly the British automaker has up its sleeve, but this is one of many references to battery power its executives have made in recent months.
According to BMW Blog (BMW is Rolls-Royce's corporate parent), inside sources claim that Rolls-Royce plans for the successor to the aging Ghost, introduced in 2009, to be fully electric in the upcoming generation. Previously, Müller-Otvös has stated that the brand's first electric car will arrive in the 2020s, which could point to an ETA for this alleged electric Ghost (great band name, by the way).
The luxury automaker plans to the leap directly from gasoline to battery power, explained company CEO Torsten Müller-Otvös in October of last year. He revealed that the automaker's plan for handling the coming transition to electrified vehicles—meaning hybrid, battery, and hydrogen fuel cell cars—will be to ride internal combustion for as long as possible before bringing on the batteries, and the new report says that the first car to get this treatment will be the Ghost.
Rolls-Royce builds the Ghost, Dawn, and Wraith on a platform derived from the previous generation of BMW 7 Series sedan, the F01 generation. The new Phantom sedan and Cullinan SUV are built on newer, made-to-spec underpinnings. BMW replaced this model with the G11 generation of 7 Series in 2015, which for the 2020 model year received a gaping-nostrilled facelift. Rolls-Royce presumably won't want to use the platforms of a car already nearing the end of its life for the basis of the new Ghost, which begs the question, "when does the new 7 Series come out?"
BMW has effectively answered that question already, via confirming a future for its current V12-engined 7 Series sedan, which a company official says will stick around until at least 2023. There's no guarantee that Rolls-Royce plans to continue building its sedans around the bones of the 7 Series, but with the prevalence of platform-sharing increasing, rather than decreasing, this looks unlikely.
In short, don't expect the first electric Rolls until 2023. That should be long enough to give the parents of today's trust-fund teens enough time to set aside six figures for their offspring's first car.
