Rolls-Royce Scraps Electric Car Target as “Drivers Prefer V12 Engines”
Rolls-Royce has become the latest carmaker to scrap plans to ditch petrol vehicles, with the British carmaker saying many customers prefer the feel of a V12 engine over electric motors. The Telegraph has the story.
The 120 year-old manufacturer outlined plans five years ago to go all-electric by 2030 but said on Wednesday that it would continue to produce internal combustion engine cars into the next decade.
The company said customers, who typically pay more than £300,000 for one of its luxury vehicles, were continuing to ask for petrol cars.
Chris Brownridge, the Chief Executive, also pointed to softer Government EV targets for the change in approach.
Rolls-Royce, which is owned by BMW, had set a target in 2021 to produce only electric cars when it unveiled its “Spectre” EV.
Brownridge said on Wednesday that Rolls-Royce would keep making cars featuring its smooth V12 engine.
“We recognise some clients would rather have a V12 engine. The V12 is part of our history,” Brownridge said, according to the Times.
It is the latest car manufacturer to abandon or water down EV targets, following such as Bentley, Aston Martin and Ferrari. Bentley said on Tuesday that it would cut around 300 jobs as it prepares to launch its first EVs.
Many companies that have backed away from EV targets have said that drivers of high-performance cars prefer the responsiveness and feeling of driving a petrol car and are not prepared for electric.
Worth reading in full.
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In other news, water is wet.
Of course, the delicious ironies of this are that firstly someone buying a car in this bracket is much more likely to be able to afford the ridiculous excess cost of a battery car over an ICE vehicle and a hefty barge like a Rolls Royce is one of the few cars that could take the extra 30% weight of a battery powered system without the owner noticing it.
Maybe these luxury car makers can afford to ignore the mandates and the coercion as their profit margin will be bigger, but smaller car companies cannot. It is the same with everything GREEN. The big Corporations can all afford to comply and therefore force out the smaller businesses.
I’m not sure the volume manufacturers can easily afford it, large as they are
RR I suspect sell a lot in many countries that don’t have EV mandates
And quite likely helped by being part of a large corporation (BMW), with a relatively small slice of their total number of non-electric transmission vehicles. At the luxury end, they can probably just add the extra tax onto their prices.
“Are you sweating while you put petrol in your car? Feeling sick while you pay for it? Then maybe you’ve caught the 2026 strain of Carownervirus.”
😁 I saw that somewhere so can’t take credit.🛺
Credit?
(Have my up-vote).
I wonder how the disaster that is Jaguar is doing these days with their mad plans? Also hear Aston Martin is in trouble, though when isn’t it?…
Early 1920s Blackpool, grandad washed cars at Brown and Maliliue garage. His mate was Bill Lyons, who had done an engineering apprenticeship and wanted to build sidecars. He set up a little workshop on Cocker St.
He called it Swallow Sidecars. It morphed into SS Jaguar.
I wonder what Sir William would make of all today’s madness.
He’d probably be chasing after the current Jaguar management with a gun I’d hope for what they’ve done to his creation…
What a radical thought: We’ll sell you what you want to buy until it becomes illegal to do so here. We look forward to seeing you elsewhere after that.
“many customers prefer the feel of a V12 engine over electric motors.” Imagine my surprise.
They prefer to get more than a mile down the road before they, or their chauffeur, has to get out and push.
So they have figured out making cars that nobody wants to buy is bad for business.