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Ultra-luxury land yachts from Cadillac and Rolls-Royce | Autoblog Podcast #752

In this episode of the Autoblog Podcast, Editor-in-Chief Greg Migliore is joined by News Editor Joel Stocksdale. In this week's news, we about a pair of ultra-luxury electric cars, the 2024 Cadillac Celestiq and Rolls-Royce Spectre. We also cover the 2024 GMC Sierra EV and 2024 Chevy Trax, plus some of the reveals from the Paris Motor Show. The show is capped off with a discussion about the electric cars Greg Migliore has driven for the North American Car and Truck of the Year Awards: the Rivian R1S SUV and Lordstown Motors Endurance pickup truck. Send us your questions for the Mailbag and Spend My Money at: Podcast@Autoblog.com. Autoblog Podcast #752 Get The Podcast Apple Podcasts – Subscribe to the Autoblog Podcast in iTunes Spotify – Subscribe to the Autoblog Podcast on Spotify RSS – Add the Autoblog Podcast feed to your RSS aggregator MP3 – Download the MP3 directly Rundown 2024 Cadillac Celestiq 2024 Rolls-Royce Spectre 2024 GMC Sierra EV 2024 Chevy Trax Paris Motor Show: Jeep Avenger EV Cars we're driving 2023 Rivian R1S 2023 Lordstown Motors Endurance Feedback Email – Podcast@Autoblog.com Review the show on Apple Podcasts Autoblog is now live on your smart speakers and voice assistants with the audio Autoblog Daily Digest. Say “Hey Google, play the news from Autoblog” or "Alexa, open Autoblog" to get your favorite car website in audio form every day. A narrator will take you through the biggest stories or break down one of our comprehensive test drives. Related video:

Rolls-Royce Wraith officially revealed in profile

Well here's a nice twofer. On the same day Rolls-Royce releases its first official teaser image showing the 2014 Wraith, we also get a look at the car undergoing some cold-weather testing courtesy of some new spy shots. As the coupe version of the Ghost, the 2014 Rolls-Royce Wraith will make its official debut at the Geneva Motor Show in March, and it's expected to go on sale during the fourth quarter of this year.
Rolls-Royce already confirmed plenty of information in a teaser it released last week, but the latest image shows us a clear shot of what the car's midsection will look like. Comparing this image and the spy shots, we can see that the Wraith will have a pretty sleek - (almost Bentley Continental GT-like) roofline, and, like the Phantom Coupe, it will have rear-hinged doors. We can also tell from the spy shots that it seems to be keeping the same face as the Ghost and taillights, too.
Be sure to check out the latest spy photos for the Wraith as well as a brief press release from Rolls-Royce by scrolling below.

Over 10 years of research went into the Rolls-Royce Spectre EV

Rolls-Royce's first series-produced electric model, the 577-horsepower Spectre, made its debut in October 2022. Electrification suits the British luxury brand well, as its clients primarily prefer a smooth and quiet ride over a deep exhaust note that sends chills down your spine. But the company's top executive told Autoblog that finding the right path to the EV segment required over a decade's worth of research. The electric 102EX prototype from 2011 helped blaze this path. It wasn't approved for production, but it showed Rolls-Royce what to do. "We never intended at that time that we would bring [the 102EX] to the market," company boss Torsten Muller-Otvos told me on the sidelines of the 2023 Villa d'Este Concours d'Elegance. "I joined Rolls-Royce in 2010, and I was always in the belief that we need to look into alternative propulsions for the brand." Rolls-Royce is part of the BMW Group, and this practice is common throughout the company: BMW and Mini experimented with electric prototypes at that time as well, and the iX5 presented in 2023 will bolster the firm's hydrogen research. Rolls-Royce learned several lessons from the 102EX project. One was to simply keep on keeping on. "One clear learning from all of our clients worldwide is to make sure that it is a Rolls-Royce first and an electric car second, not the other way around. [The Spectre] smells like a Rolls-Royce, it feels like a Rolls-Royce, and it sounds like a Rolls-Royce — [that means that] there is no sound, obviously. [There is] no funky dashboard, huge screen, or whatever. That would not be us," he continued. Customers also told Rolls-Royce not to make a car defined by superlatives. These buyers aren't concerned about having the longest driving range or the quickest acceleration time, largely because they already have a variety of different cars in their fleet plus access to private jets. This also explains why many Rolls-Royce models aren't used as long-distance cars in spite of a powerful V12 engine and a spacious interior. "It was clear that we don't need to be number one with outrageous range; a range of [about 310 miles] is totally sufficient for our clients. [The EX project] also gave us the right logic behind battery size, what we need to do in terms of body shape, and what the car should look like. It's a very fine balance between range, the size of the battery, and what kind of compromises you suddenly get into the entire design of the car. I'm going to say we learned a lot.