Rolls-Royce | The Verge

Rolls-Royce suggests using its first SUV to go volcano boarding

2018-05-10T17:03:31-04:00

After years of teasing and testing, Rolls-Royce has unveiled its first SUV, a boat of a vehicle called the Cullinan that's named after the largest diamond ever discovered. "The most anticipated car of 2018 and, quite possibly, the most anticipated Rolls-Royce of all time," according to Rolls-Royce, the Cullinan goes on sale later this year for around $325,000 - roughly 1/100th of the estimated value of the diamond.

The all-wheel drive Cullinan will be plenty powerful - with a 6.75L twin-turbo V12 engine that makes 563 horsepower and 627 pound-feet of torque - and it's being positioned by Rolls-Royce as an adept offroad vehicle. (The company …

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2017: My year in cars

2017-12-30T15:00:02-05:00

At times this year at The Verge, it feels like we already live in the autonomous future in our transportation section. It's not entirely clear whether the momentum that drives us will be dystopian or delightful. But like our readers, we must get by in the present, where human-driven cars that we own, lease, buy, or ride in via our ridesharing drivers are still by far the dominant form of mobility. How can we write with knowledge about what's coming in cars if we don't know where we're at? We launched our series ScreenDrive this year to show that many elements of cars are just like the gadgets we cover in our sister tech section - perfectly f …

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Eye sights: The headlights of 2017

2025-10-17T13:41:00-04:00

Sleek, domed, square, round, wrap-around, forward-facing, continuous, bright. Headlights are utilitarian… mostly. They illuminate the way. An obvious necessity, they might not appear as the most important design feature on a car, but as The Verge's staff photographer, when I shoot cars, I have noticed that they determine the personality of the vehicle. The shape, type of bulb, and amount of omitted light have come a long way since the birth of automobiles - in fact the first cars didn't even have headlights. They became commonplace in cars in the 1920s.

Contemporary cars generally use a variety of lighting systems. More economical cars have …

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The Lamborghini Urus and the case for super luxury SUVS

2017-12-05T11:43:56-05:00

This week, Lamborghini unveiled its all-new Urus super-SUV. This outrageously fast, 650-horsepower, $200,000 off-roading four-door is not the first sport utility vehicle from the famed Italian exotic automaker. That was the Hummer-esque, Countach-powered LM002 of the '80s and '90s. But that was a long time ago, well before a desire for high-riding vehicles - trucks, sport utes, and crossovers - transitioned from a niche market to a common one to one that has surpassed passenger cars to become the most popular automotive category. (It's now responsible for two-thirds of all American automotive sales.)

It was also well before a brand like B …

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America’s most important luxury car show

2017-08-23T10:07:14-04:00

Every August, droves of car collectors gather for a week on the Monterey Peninsula to show off, ogle, and place big-money bids, all culminating in an elaborate Sunday afternoon car show: the Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance. Ladies wear complicated hats and men don pastel seersucker suits for the golf course occasion. It's an ostentatious display that seems distant, even out of step with the concerns and circumstances of the outside world.

But Monterey Car Week also might be the most important luxury car show in America.

Monterey Car Week might be the most important car show in America

I've been going to Pebble Beach on and off for the past …

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The Rolls-Royce Phantom design opens doors for an electric future

2017-07-27T16:00:01-04:00

Rolls-Royce is in a peculiar position when it comes to imagining the future of luxury transportation. The 112-year-old motor company is the very definition of a luxury car, but much of its auspicious reputation is based on its embodiment of classical luxury, in the tradition of Beethoven, foie gras, and delectable suicide doors.

But Rolls-Royce customers expect the best, and as the brand focuses on wooing a younger customer base, tasteful, top-of-the-line technology is becoming paramount to those expectations. The look, tactile feel, and the user experience of that technology fall on its design department to imagine. Giles Taylor is charged …

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ScreenDrive: The $400,000 Rolls-Royce Dawn plays it safe with limited tech

2017-06-07T10:00:02-04:00

Cars have become expensive, rolling gadgets that are full of screens, speakers, and sensors - but are they actually good gadgets? In our new series, ScreenDrive, we'll review cars just like any other device, starting with the basics of what they're like to use.

The construction workers on 59th Street loved to stare. During my day of driving the Rolls-Royce Dawn around, I took the car through three boroughs - Manhattan, Brooklyn, and Queens - and stopped people in their tracks in each one. A construction worker in the city looked back at me while I was stopped at a red light. I saw him whisper to his co-worker, and then he turned around, too …

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Do not misunderstand the Geneva Motor Show

2017-03-07T08:05:01-05:00

Rolls-Royce Ghost with diamond dust in the paint | Vlad Savov / The Verge

I've started each of the past four years in the same way: covering the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, then Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, followed by the Geneva Motor Show in its eponymous city. I've used the same camera, laptop, even backpack at each of them, and I've had the same connectivity frustrations in each city. But don't let that lull you into thinking these three events are identical. Geneva is a showcase unlike any on the consumer tech calendar.

CES and MWC, for all their variety, ultimately boil down to mass-market companies currying favor with either fellow mass-market business partners or the eventual consumers …

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Rolls-Royce’s upcoming SUV looks like a supersized Phantom

2016-12-02T14:10:05-05:00

The last time Rolls-Royce let the world in on its upcoming SUV codenamed "Project Cullinan," it was testing out the all-wheel drive platform using a freakishly modified Phantom. Now, some 20 months later, we're getting the first glimpse of the actual SUV that will go up against the Bentley Bentyaga for the title of the most luxurious vehicle that can take you and the kids on a Whole Foods run.

If you think Project Cullinan looks like a slightly bigger Phantom, that's seemingly what Rolls-Royce was going for. When it announced its plans to build an SUV, the company said it wanted to build a "high-bodied car" and this is definitely that.

The …

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Get inside Rolls-Royce’s unbelievable Vision 100 concept car in 360 degrees

2016-06-16T15:39:02-04:00

Love it or hate it, the concept car that Rolls-Royce unveiled today as a part of parent company BMW's centennial festivities is one of the wildest automotive designs in recent memory. We've already brought you coverage of the unveiling - but how'd you like to step inside?

Rolls-Royce has posted a 360-degree YouTube video of the vehicle, taking you inside the sparse cabin (seriously, there's not much there, apart from a luxurious seat and some wood trim). Afterward, you can see the roof and door open as you make your grand entrance, presumably at a gala event or the cul-de-sac in front of your summer home in the Hamptons. The video is hosted …

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