An interesting insight into the mentality of the typical car journalist can be found over at Jalopnik. It bemoans Rolls Royce’s decision to walk back its prior commitment to turn its vehicles into battery powered devices. Instead, it will – in the words of CEO Chris Brownridge – “respond to client demand” by continuing to put the V12 that makes a Rolls-Royce something other than another battery powered device. “We build what is ordered,” he says.
This triggered the Jalopnik writer:
“Rolls is the poster child for why it makes sense to switch to electric, as the downsides of EV ownership flat out don’t matter to the average Rolls buyer. The extra weight of batteries is practically a rounding error when you’re talking about 5,700 pound luxury machines. Charging times are practically irrelevant when you have a hired driver and hundreds of miles of range. If you’re going more than the estimated 329 miles of range in Rolls’ Spectre EV, you’re taking the private jet, natch. A lot of Rolls-Royce driving (or being driven) is done in the large city centers of Europe, most of which charge a significant congestion fee for gasoline powered vehicles as well.”
“When the all-electric Rolls-Royce Spectre launched in 2022 the company was committed to ending its reliance on gasoline engines by the end of the decade. That decision made all the sense in the world, because the company’s ethos is inextricably intertwined with quietness, refinement, and effortless power, which are exactly the things that electric propulsion brings to the table.”
I’ll try to explain – since he clearly doesn’t understand.
A battery – no matter how pricey – will always be just another battery. One can make a bigger battery or a smaller one. It can be capable of storing more – or less – electricity. But it will still be just a battery. That is to say, a thing without any aesthetic or emotional appeal. How could it be otherwise? A battery isn’t inspiring to look at and – indeed – you cannot even look at it, since the big plastic-encased thing is hidden under the floorpans. If you could look at it, what would you see? A large, awkwardly shaped (to fit the contours of the floorpan) container.
Who gets excited about a container?
Even if you could see inside it, what would you see? A stacked lattice framework, some chemicals and some silicon chips/connectors. Does the sight arouse anything that might be considered passion or even vague interest? After you’ve seen one you’ve seen them all. It’s like lookin at stacks of concrete blocks.
How about electric motors?
They have the same aesthetic/emotional problem as the battery packs that power them. As with battery packs, there is nothing wrong, per se, with electric motors. They have many useful purposes. But at the end of the day, they are just electric motors. One can be larger or more powerful than another – or smaller and less powerful. There is very little in the way of other differences and in one very critical respect, all electric motors are exactly the same: They don’t do anything at all – unless they are spinning. Nothing interesting happens when you push the “On” button – which is still vestigially marked as the Start button, a nod to what’s missing that only calls attention to that fact. Well, nothing distinctive, that would call attention to there being something different that’s powering up.
It is like flipping the switch that turns on the lights in the kitchen – a purely utilitarian act, in other words and one that is exactly the same in every house that has electric lights and switches that turn them on and off. The electricity is the same in a run-down single wide trailer as it is in the White House. Maybe people marvel at the chandeliers in the White House but the switch? Who even consciously thinks about the electricity? It’s just on – or off.
Whoop-te-do.
Now, a Rolls-Royce V12 being started is something else. Also even before it is started. A V12 is not something that everyone else has – like electricity. Like a battery. It is something very few are privileged to have, as in something extraordinary. Just the badge – “V12” – draws attention in the way a battery or a motor never can. There is something to look at, too – assuming the vehicle’s manufacturer hasn’t been gauche enough to cover up the magnificence with a plastic cover. More finely, it is something people want to see, in part because it is such an uncommon thing but also because it is beautiful. Industrial art. Form and function complementing one another. It is why you see the hoods raised at car shows, including – especially – high-end car shows, such as the Pebble Beach Concours d’ Elegance that showcase the machines of the pre-war, art deco era.
But also at muscle car shows and just generally – even including shows of “rice” cars from the ’90s. People want to see what’s under there. Why? Does the writer of the embarrassing article published by Jalopknik not ask that question? No, he does not. Why? Because asking it would imply an understanding of what makes cars – special cars, especially – something other than just another appliance. You know, the understanding that people who wrote about cars were nce expected to have. Jus as doctors were once expected to understand the difference between a symptom suppressor and a vaccine.
He says:
“The pros of EV adoption among Rolls-Royce owners dramatically outweigh the cons. I simply can’t fathom why anyone with Rolls money would waste their time with the less efficient, slower, louder, and more bothersome twin-turbo V12 engine models.”
Such is the state of car journalism in this year of tribulation, 2026.
And they ask me why I drink.
. . . .
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[…] https://www.ericpetersautos.com/2026/03/23/rolls-royce-isnt-going-all-electric/ […]
Wow, Eric…that’s an automotive “jourrrrrrrrrrnalist” with soybean oil instead of gasoline in “his/her” veins.
Indeed,Bill!
Looking forward to discussing today. Also, I took the TA out for its first shakedown cruise!
Jalopnik used to come up in my Farcebook feed all the time. They’ve always been woke EV cucks. Pure propaganda. I finally got tired of their bloviating nonsense and blocked them. Car guys, they are definitely not.
“Charging times are practically irrelevant when you have a hired driver and hundreds of miles of range.” -bought-and-paid-for Jalopnik dipshit
Yeah, because nothing screams “luxury”, like having to wait for AT LEAST 30 minutes to get going somewhere, if someone forgets to plug in beforehand. And that’s assuming the owner either has a 480V EV charger on their property, or has access to one nearby. Never thought I’d see the day, when even prestige automakers get shamed into being “compliant”!
Methinks that even THE WEALTHY are not long for this world. Only royalty (i.e. the 1% of the 1%) shall remain, apparently. So much for it being a “big club”, as George Carlin dubbed it! lol
The factor that gives a car its soul is the engine. I love the muscled roar of a pushrodV-8, the assured thrum of a silky V-12, the buzzsaw on steroids zing of a VTEC Honda 4 cylinder, the blat of a flat four and the high pitched roar of a flat-plane crank V-8. They imbued the car with character and a voice.
EVs can not do this. They are intended to get the average person OUT of a car and onto easily controlled and monitored “public” transportation.
The demonic elites want to cram us into crime-infested, tyrannical cities like Judge Dredd’s mega cities, leaving the countryside to their whims.
What this type of car writer fails to grasp is engines. Whether on a lawn mower, tractor, or sports car, the engine itself captures the imagination.
They can be tinkered with and manipulated to run well or better.
There is a sound that invokes a certain satisfaction when it is fixed or just by those hearing it purr or roar.
It is the very sound of work being done.
Maybe that’s what escapes the minds of these college corrupted writers.
Engines are complicated. Fuel and air move a bunch of parts in different directions to power something.
That such a thing was developed in an era where machining was hard and measurements not as precise as today displays the ingenuity of those with ideas and determination to toil away at a device that made life so much better.
Maybe that’s underserved nostalgia, but there is something raw and even primal about a real machine powering up, pumping out sounds and exhaust to raise, lower, move, or power something. It feels like work and that calls to people.
Electricity can do plenty of work – more than an engine, but it does it in a hospital operating room sterile way. No one gets excited riding in an elevator.
Estrogen-laden liberal they/thems infiltrated all of our institutions through HR and started hiring unqualified but like-minded degenerates, even / especially in highly specialized fields such as automotive journalism that were once male dominated. Now those institutions are failing, but that’s A-OK with they, because that was the point all along.
I enjoy it when I see some pushback, and the hell-spawns start squirming and throwing tantrums.
Roger that, Philo!
Brad Brownell would probably have been triggered by the sound of the TA firing up yesterday. How dare you!
Nobody wants a car that takes hours to refuel.
Nobody wants car that can’t be refueled if it’s too cold outside.
Nobody wants a car that has a fuel tank that magically shrinks in capacity every time you refilll it, but weighs the same 2000 or more lbs. until the car is scrapped in five years because that magic fuel tank can’t be refilled any more and the replacement cost is more than the car is worth.
Nobody wants a car with no resale value.
Nobody who has thought it through wants a car that requires a ***massive*** (and massively expensive) infrastructure improvement project on a national scale to provide enough electric energy for electric vehicles to use.
The arguments for electric vehicles are essentially all emotional.
The arguments against electric vehicles are essentially all rational.
People like this Jalopnik writer are not capable of engaging with reality, and nobody should take anything they say seriously. He is broadly representative of the proponents of electric vehicles.
Yahoo Finance, in their infinite non-wisdom, is touting used EVs as an affordable alternative:
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/why-used-evs-may-be-the-answer-for-americans-looking-for-affordable-cars-133000113.html
Hi 84Lion!
I can’t think of worse advice – unless it is to vote Harder Next Time!
That article states the price of gas will make EV’s a better deal. This war in Iran has taken a lot of capacity offline. All this destroyed infrastructure isn’t coming back online soon. They might be right. I think I’ll just buy a small cc motorcycle if so.
Hi Ben,
The small motorcycle thing is a good idea. A 250 cc dual sport gets 90-100 MPG and you can buy a used one for around $3,000 or so. Beats Hell out of an EeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeVeeeeeeee!
I dont understand how the minds of these “journalist” work….He goes on about how electric is ideal for the RR drivers because they dont care about petty things like having to wait to charge because they have a driver, take private jets, extra cost or weight not mattering…. but then implies one of the benefits of getting an electric car is saving on the “fees” government charges drivers of petrol cars….Im sure something on top of the mind of the average Rolls buyer!!
He accidentally admitted that EV’s have flaws that make them undesirable for normal people. I wonder if he realizes that.
He probably lives in NYC, doesn’t drive, and has been raised in an environment of wealth envy, where he vilifies those rich people. What I don’t understand is why he bothers writing at all. There are many like him spouting this nonsense, and why is someone willing to pay someone like him? Who pays for this rubbish?
Hi OL. Yes, I doubt he understands much about cars or rich people. Like rich people with private jets – the reason they spend a fortune keeping one is so they can go wherever they want, whenever they want….
After that they will buy a RR which will take an hour + to charge IF he can find a “fast charger”, around which he will have to plan his whole life !!
Yeh im sure this is what a rich guy buying a half a million dollar car to get to his private jet will want…. Im sure the savings of not having to pay congestion charge will make it all worth it!
Jalopnik writer makes a lot of assumptions about the life of a RR buyer. He doesn’t know what such a buyer/owner might want, nor why, nor how he might use the vehicle, or anything else about him. The RR CEO has the fundamental right of it in that all that matters is what the customer wants, for whatever reason. They need to build what their customers want to buy, period.
I don’t get how Maricon’s like him are employed at car sites, he should be given the boot and blacklisted.
I guess he’s also a redditor who’s woman has a bf and can’t drive stick
I was just the docs, and they had a car and driver mag., so I started reading it.
It was 3/4’s filled with EV testing and bs articles about how great they are.
Are they still pushing this crap? I looked at the date, March 2025. So even a year ago they were still pushing them. IDK now?
What a softie. Look at that stupid ginger beard lefty. Why are you even bothering reading Jalopnik? That’s like watching CNN and complaining about their people.
Hi Lord James,
Well, I like to keep track of the enemy’s doings!
Take a hard look at the lede photo. The six raised white wings on each side give a vague artist’s impression of an intake manifold. Likewise, the two black longitudinal breadboxes at the extreme left and right resemble valve covers.
But it’s all just fake and gay plastic, best I can see. Somewhere under there, an engine is buried. Most owners will never see it.
It looks like a scale model of an airport terminal, designed by an aspiring young architect. You’d think this would earn plaudits from Jalopnik. If only they’d used pink plastic … 🙁
I mean, yeah, the fake plastic covers on a Volkwagen you can argue is to fool the owner or whatever.
A Rolls?
The person who will lift the hood is probably 5 degrees removed from the owner who could not give one single shit what it looks under there.
That car writer definitely wants to be super rich super bad. But can you even fathom what an irritating douchebag he would be at the club? Twirling his pink and boring on about his ethos?
He’s right to the extent that the jackasses pushing this SHOULD be forced to use an EV. These things are their idiotic idea. They need to put their money where their mouth is.
Brad Brownell at a certain level may be “right” but that doesn’t make a difference to the person spending the money. The value such as it is in the stateliness of having a V12 in your car that most people will never see or experience but they will.
It’s been the same way since forever. Over a century ago tiller type steering was the way to go but some people wanted a wheel and now all cars have wheels. Absent of GovCo regulations a superior design at an affordable cost eventually becomes the standard.
Perhaps, to paraphrase President Reagan we need to demand our economic liberty: “Mr President, tear down the walls of bureaucracy that have turned us into slaves” but even if that were to happen the courts would demand the walls went back up.
Rich clowns cars anyway let them go under long gone are the days when any car makers cared about what the customer wants.
Several thoughts in no particular order:
-The fact that Rolls Royce is making cars with V12 engines for elites is yet another reason why I think that same elites don’t really buy the whole climate change thing—they’re still flying in private jets, eating Wagyu steaks, buying oceanfront property, and going into their offices—it’s We The Deplorables who must own nothing and eat ze bugs to save the planet.
-Rolls Royce, like Jaguar, Mercedes Benz, Cadillac, and Harley Davidson, was once something special, unique, and different from anything else on the road. You knew it when you saw, heard, and felt it. But today’s Jaguars, Mercedes, Cadillacs, and Harleys are nothing like the Jags, Benzes, Caddys, and Hawgs of old, or anything special, except for the name on the hood or gas tank, and except for the price. Rolls Royce saw that elektrifikatsiya would do the same to its vehicles.
-Elektrifikatsiya would, in the mind of Rolls, be a
blow that they might not recover from. An electrified Roller would be no different from any other vehicle on the road, except in name and price. And thus people would stop buying.
-Really rich people abhor inconvenience,
waiting, and losses of money and time. Any electric vehicle—even a Rolls Royce—means inconvenience, waiting, and losses of money and time. Even an electric Rolls will mean waiting hours for a full charge. Even an electric Rolls will depreciate at, well, lightning speed. Even an electric Rolls will require that one carefully plan trips around available charging stations. Even an electric Rolls will lose range in cold, heat, and hilly terrain.
More:
‘Rolls has been endeavoring for decades to make its V12 as quiet and smooth as possible, but it still gets its butt kicked in NVH [Noise, Vibration, Harshness] tests by the electric motor.
‘You would be a fool to order a gas-powered Rolls, and that’s completely ignoring the woke lib talking points like exhaust emissions, congestion charges, and the rapidly rising cost of fuel.’ — Brad Brownell
LOL — like the super-rich care about emissions or pocket-change expenses! That’s why they fly private jets to Davos.
Who the hell is Brad Brownell? ‘Brad is a graduate of the Mid-Ohio Driving School. Bradley studied and received an ABA in 2007 from Kalamazoo Valley Community College and transferred credits to Western Michigan University. There he continued his education, studying Mandarin Chinese, Spanish, entrepreneurship, advertising and promotion.’
Wool gathering, in other words. A magpie’s nest. Now he lectures ‘fools’ who buy V12 Rolls Royces from his tiny soapbox.
With friends like Brad Brownell, the dying EeeVee industry hardly needs enemies like me, who just want to torch it to roast wieners and marshmallows in the bright, licking flames. Burn, baby, burn!
Probably has lots of school loans. Working for an outfit like jelloshit allows hesheit to work from it’s parents basement and make those payments.
Does anyone read Jalopnik other than Eric? I have never seen the magazine (even in the dentists office, sarc).
I don’t ever remember jalopnick until Eric cites ’em. I confess that I’ll look at Ars Technica for their spaceflight coverage. Occasionally will click over to their cars section just to watch the looney tunes.
Morning, MH!
I use Jalopnik as an example – because it’s among the worst – but there are many others. Car & Driver and Road & Track and cars.com (I used to write for the latter) included.
I had a C&D subscription non-stop since 1975. Until 2 year ago when they morphed into Golf Cart Monthly
How I miss David E. Davis Jr and Pat Beddard.
Eric, it seems you’re the last one keeping the flame alive.
Eric is the Brock Yates of our times. He could be Henry N. Manney III but, without the tweed jacket and stringback gloves.
Jalopnik is the marriage counselor that’s been divorced three times.
More truth to that than you might realize. The divorce world is female dominance – evicting a hapless male from his family without cause and forcing him into financial slavery. The V12 is male energy, loud, proud, productive, exciting. Of course it needs to die. And with it civilization, since male energy is what built and maintains it.
“The V12 is male energy, loud, proud, productive, exciting. Of course it needs to die. And with it civilization, since male energy is what built and maintains it.”
BOOM. Very well stated.
This is typical of all the so-called “elites” today: no matter how much money you have, you are stupid and they know everything. The sheer haughtiness of these people is grating as fuck.
Did you get covid and recover naturally, thus developing antibodies than make you immune? Shut the fuck up and take the jab and put on your mask anyway. Because we said so. Because we know everything and you are stupid.
Did you get ten feet of snow this winter? That’s because of global warming, so we’re going to ban your gas furnace. Shut the fuck up, you stupid moron.
Did thirty million aliens cross the border? You can’t arrest and deport them, you stupid MAGA moron. We need cheap landscapers and nannies. “No human is illegal” — unless you’re a white guy with a gun Spanberger doesn’t want you to have.
A woman can be trapped inside a man’s body, and if he cuts his dick off and puts on lipstick, now he’s a woman. “Gender is a social construct,” you stupid idiot. My lesbian sociology professor said so.
I think this attitude comes from the fact that universities have ceased to teach (and even allow) critical thinking. “Elites” chase paper university credentials and “get ahead” by insulating themselves from you “stupid” people and adopting all the “right” attitudes. They live in an echo chamber of their own making.
Hi X,
Amen! There is also something else that I can speak to as regards car journalism. When I was coming up, back in the early ’90s, the gatekeepers were guys like me – i.e., men who loved cars and knew something about them. Ferrets such as that Jalopnik writer would never have gotten in the door, once upon a time. But the old gatekeepers – the Brock Yates types – retired and died off and were replaced by guys like that Jalopnik ferret, who got hired by the consolidated corporate entities that bought out most of the by-then-struggling mags and papers. Voila – here we are.
The only reason I’m still around is because I own EPautos and so I’d have to fire myself and hire someone like that Jalopnik ferret to replace me!
Brock was a mensch. Also really miss LJK Setright. The rise of the almighty dollar killed off everything great, art, engineering, writing, architecture. The accountants, the bean counters, the lovers of money have wrought their evil wide, deeply, and thoroughly.
“Did you get ten feet of snow this winter? That’s because of global warming, so we’re going to ban your gas furnace. Shut the fuck up, you stupid moron.” – X
Or “This is the worst drought since the 1930s dustbowl!” We were taught that the dustbowl was caused by the stupid white man tilling up the soil in the southern plains. But reality was it was a 100 year drought that dried up the soil. The farming techniques didn’t help, but without rain there’d be no crops. And why drought? Well, warm water in the Pacific and North Atlantic that shifted moisture away from the middle of the continent. Something man has no control over at all.
This year everyone in Colorado is worried about the snowpack. It’s low, very low. In fact the lowest “on record.” When did they start keeping records? 1982. So what was the snowpack in the dustbowl years? Probably no better than this year. Are we in a drought cycle? Probably. Should we be worried? Well, maybe, if California won’t deal with reality and accept revisions to the Colorado River Compact. And California won’t do that unless they stop worrying about the delta smelt and start running their own water projects at capacity again. Fact is, California shouldn’t need any water from the Colorado, but because they have the most votes, they get the most stuff. To the point that they can invent water crises and blame everyone else.
The US Dept of Agriculture has snow depth data for the Colorado mountains dating to 1955 and installation of SNOTEL sites began in 1979. The 1982 water year is used because this is considered the point where there’s sufficient data for valid statistic analysis at a national level.
I would additionally point out that SNOTEL, like the other NOAA data, has many overlooked failings. The placement of the sites is fixed and doesn’t fully normalize for development and changes around them due to new roads and trails, buildings, etc. NOAA climatic collection sites were often rural that 100 years later are now suburbs or urban. So a site that was once natural is a parking lot, which will of course be hotter.
That validity of the data not withstanding your point is well taken still, what’s 50 or 500 or 5000 years on an Earth-scale meteorological and geological timeline?
I often retort to this climate crisis sky is falling rhetoric by asking what then is the ‘right’ snow water equivalent or temperature? This stumps both the most neophyte only parroting the evening news all the way up to the most credentialed expert.
There are open minded climate scientists (amateur and professional) who understand the question and engage the discussion. Is there an absolute correct SWE (or temp) or is there even a preferred trend towards increasing either drought or flood? Ask any farmer and he’ll tell you it’s either raining too much or not enough. It’s -never- perfect.