The Rolls-Royce Spectre Black Badge Is A Performance EV, Rolls-Style

There was a time, not that long ago, when Rolls-Royce wouldn’t have done anything as crass, as vulgar, as nouveau riche, as flaunting the power output of its cars. The car world changes quickly, though, so here’s the new Rolls-Royce Spectre Black Badge, which its maker proudly proclaims is the most powerful car it’s ever made.

Black Badge, as you might recall, is the closest thing Rolls has to a performance brand. It’s still a Roller, though, so there are no drift modes, in-built lap timers or optional Pilot Cup 2 tyres to be found here. It’s simply a Spectre – Rolls’ first EV – for people who might like to get where they’re going slightly quicker.

To do that, they can press a new button on the Black Badge’s steering wheel marked with an infinity symbol. This uncorks the full complement of power from its two motors – 650bhp and 793lb ft of torque. That compares to 577bhp and 664lb ft in the regular car.

Rolls, in a very un-Rolls-ish move, has even let us know how quickly this whisks the Black Badge to 60mph from standstill – 4.1 seconds. We get the sense that a four-wheel drive EV with that much torque could do that quicker, but that Rolls has deliberately resisted making it possible. Just a hunch. A quoted maximum range of 329 miles is also proffered.

Should you encounter a corner on your several-mile-long driveway, you’ll be glad to know that the Black Badge’s chassis has been tweaked, too. The steering has been weighted up and the roll stabilisation tuned to reduce lean, and the dampers have been reworked to stop the Spectre squatting and diving as much under acceleration and braking.

Helping visually identify the Black Badge are – get this – some black badges. The polished exterior brightwork, including the Spirit of Ecstasy herself, has been darkened too, and there’s also the option of a new set of enormous 23-inch forged aluminium wheels. Oh, and if you were an old school Roller owner who already found the marque’s new illuminated grilles a bit tasteless, look away now: the lighting now comes in multiple different colours.

Personalisation potential is pretty much limitless, with over 44,000 paint colours available. We can literally only think of about 10.

On the inside, meanwhile, it’s set apart from the ‘regular’ Spectre by repeated instances of the infinity symbol – stitched onto the ‘waterfall’ section dividing the rear seats, and recreated in part by over 5500 tiny pin-prick light elements in the dash, which is now covered in a new ‘technical fibre’ finish, comprising of carbon and metal thread on a bolivar wood base. The mind boggles.

Although it’s out now, even if you rock up at Rolls’ Goodwood HQ with a cargo plane full of money, you won’t be the first to get a Black Badge. That’s because a small group of existing Rolls owners, who kept pestering the company about whether it was going to do a Black Badge Spectre, were granted early access to the car and have been secretly driving them about for some time now. Apparently, they liked it.