Rolls-Royce EV Cancelled Due To Lack Of Customer Interest

The people have spoken, and they’re not interested in an electric Rolls-Royce.

Since its debut at the 2011 Geneva Motor Show, Rolls-Royce has been traveling the world with its sole Rolls-Royce 102EX Phantom Experimental Electric, gauging how likely current Rolls-Royce owners would be to open their Burberry wallets for an EV adorned with the Spirit of Ecstasy.

Apparently, those folks told Rolls where they could plug it, as Motor Trend reported yesterday that the project has been cancelled. And so, the sole Rolls-Royce EV will forever wear the red badge that marks it as a prototype. Company officials always said that they’d build the 102EX only as long as their customers demanded it, and not a single one did.

Their opinions were quite different than ours. We got the chance to drive the 102 EX shortly after its debut and immediately fell in love. The electric drivetrain’s seamless, silent acceleration and massive amounts of torque seemed perfectly suited for the Phantom, as did the ability to hide the high cost of batteries in the car’s already exorbitant purchase price. We couldn’t imagine range anxiety being a problem for the kind of people who own multiple cars, take private jets for long trips and have a household staff to keep the batteries charged.

Our take was shared by nearly everyone else who drove it and later wrote about it. Of course, Rolls-Royce doesn’t listen to automotive writers. They listen to their customers, 500 of whom said they’d prefer a V12 to 96 lithium nickel cobalt manganese oxide pouch cells, and weren’t at all impressed with the car’s claimed range of 120 miles or eight hour recharge time. As early as last June, customer feedback was decidedly lukewarm.

That’s one of the benefits of running such an exclusive car maker — instant access to the wants, needs and whims of your entire target audience. We’d be willing to bet that Ford, GM and Toyota have each conducted focus groups with far more participants.

Just because the 102EX is dead doesn’t mean we’ll never see a plug-in Rolls, however. Just as company officials learned that their customers didn’t want an EV, they undoubtedly found out just what would interest potential buyers — whether it’s the promise of a future hybrid, range-extended EV, or another car with a V12.

New Alfa Romeo Roadster Will Be Mazda MX-5 Based, Built In Japan

Earlier this morning, Mazda and Fiat announced that they are partnering to build a new Alfa Romeo roadster off of the forthcoming Mazda MX-5 platform. This could be very, very good news for fans of both brands.

According to Mazda, the two companies signed a non-binding memorandum of understanding (MoU) to further the development and production of two new roadsters, both based on the next-generation Mazda MX-5. The final paperwork is due to be signed in the second half of 2012, with the first cars rolling off the assembly line in 2015.

The MoU gives us a sneak peek of what the new Alfa roadster will offer, and we like what we see so far. Mazda said it calls for each carmaker to build “two differentiated, distinctly styled, iconic and brand-specific light weight roadsters featuring rear-wheel drive.” Check.

Though both cars are expected to be built in Mazda’s Hiroshima plant, the Alfa won’t just be a badge-engineered MX-5. “The Mazda and Alfa Romeo variants will each be powered by specific proprietary engines unique to each brand,” Mazda said.

If the two cars do retain their individual personalities, and if there’s a turbo Multiair under the hood of the Alfa, it sounds like this partnership has a chance of avoiding the fate shared by other cars that tried to merge the best of East and West — like the Honda/Rover Sterling disaster, or Alfa and Nissan’s miserable Arna hatchback.

Most importantly, it helps Alfa bring back a model integral to its brand identity that’s been missing since the last Spider crawled off the assembly line in 2010. Alfa’s roadsters may be icons — remember the Duetto Dustin Hoffman drove in The Graduate? — but today nobody builds an affordable rear-wheel drive roadster better than Mazda.

There’s no word on whether both cars will make it to the US, but it seems like there’s a chance it could happen. According to Fiat boss Sergio Marchionne, the agreement between the two companies “demonstrates our commitment to Alfa Romeo and the determination to grow it into a truly global brand.” Considering that the MX-5 platform will most likely be developed with US safety standards in mind, we can only hope that a new roadster will join the 4C at Alfa Romeo dealers across North America.