A few months ago, BMW, the current owner of Rolls-Royce, decided to register the trade name Silent Shadow for the first electric car of the legendary English firm.
Rolls-Royce already announced at the time that the company would not bet on plug-in hybrids, concentrating its entire budget on 100% electric models. “We need to make smart decisions about where we invest our money. It may be okay for larger companies to go for hybrids and all kinds of different technologies. We needed to make a particular decision.”
According to Autocar, BMW is currently using an electric prototype based on the Phantom VIII at its research and development center in Munich as a first approach to the future Silent Shadow. A project that has been paired with that of the BMW i7, the derived electric luxury sedan of the next BMW 7 Series.
While both vehicles will share numerous components to exploit economies of scale to the full, their platforms will differ. While the i7 will use the well-known CLAR architecture already seen in other models in the group, the Silent Shadow will employ a dedicated aluminum platform that will contain the very high weight of the car.
Both models will use cells produced by Samsung SDI, although depending on the supply capacities, they could also use CATL. Among other details, it is known that BMW has developed two types of powertrain (rear-wheel drive and all-wheel drive, respectively) and batteries of more than 100 kWh that will allow more than 310 miles of autonomy.