What you see here is Rolls Royce’s newest driver-focussed coupé. It’s called the Spectre and, even if it’s a four-seat fastback with a long bonnet and two rear-hinged doors, it is not actually a direct replacement for the discontinued Wraith. (The Spectre’s 420,000 USD price tag and lengthier size actually put it more in line with the old Phantom Fixed Head Coupé). What the Spectre is, however, is a sign of things to come. That’s because Rolls Royce engineers did not develop this car around their silky smooth and potent 6.6-litre, turbo-charged V12 but a 120kWh nickel-manganese-cobalt battery pack instead. FYI, they make just 102kWh of the pack’s capacity usable to safeguard the long lifespan that their highly esteemed cars are expected to have. In return, the Spectre delivers a carbon-free driving range of around 450 kilometres, which admittedly falls short of the Lucid Air’s 830-kilometre range but, believe it or not, customer feedback indicated that Rolls Royce owners only cared for a 300-kilometre range. It’s a very specific number but perhaps longer journeys would be done by chopper or jet.

The same logic also filtered down to the fact Rolls Royce opted for BMW’s fifth-generation prismatic battery cells and a 400V electric architecture (instead of the 800V tech deployed by Porsche, Audi, Hyundai, and Kia), which shows just how important established quality and longevity are, coming as they do at the price of innovation and faster charging. The result though is that the DC rapid-charging speed has to be limited to 195kW. Still, you can get a Spectre from 10 per cent to 80 per cent in 34 minutes.

Of course, there’s no such thing as a perfect EV. At least not yet. Nevertheless, the Spectre certainly presents a vision of what the most desirable one is right now. With its ultra-luxurious and cossetting interior offering a near silent ride, there can’t be many better ways to tour in style. And, if the Spectre really is a sign of things to come, then it’s clear that the age of electric propulsion is going to suit Rolls-Royce to a tee.