Rolls-Royce has issued a recall for 107 Spectre electric vehicles due to a potentially faulty ground cable. The automaker is concerned that this issue could result in a poor ground connection and pose a significant safety risk. Now, it’ll have all of those cars come back to a dealer so that a tech can clean the cable and reattach it.
Rolls-Royce says that it caught the potential problem during a pre-delivery inspection back in December of 2023. It was then that a worker noticed adhesive residue on a ground cable connection eyelet. The manufacturer initiated an engineering investigation and a day later, the supplier began one of its own.
Over the next couple of weeks, the team decided to place a vehicle delivery stop on the Spectre beginning on January 11th, 2024. According to Rolls-Royce, the adhesive residue potentially rests on a ground cable that attaches to the front electric motor. That residue could lead to increased electrical resistance and ultimately, an insufficient ground connection.
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While that would be a pain, the real danger comes in two other forms. First, a short circuit ultimately caused by the issue could pose a serious safety hazard to any tech that works on an associated part of the car. Secondly, Rolls-Royce says that the condition could lead to “the risk of a thermal event” but clarifies that it would be “an extremely rare case.”
“Thermal event” is often the term associated with run-away fires that are extremely hot, fast to spread, and hard to put out. In this case, though, Rolls-Royce says that it isn’t aware of any such incidents. The 107 cars included in the recall will have a technician remove the ground cable, check it for adhesive residue, clean it if necessary, and then reinstall it.
Rolls-Royce says that it expects about 90 percent of the total recall population to have the problem. It doesn’t say exactly how the residue got onto the component in the first place. The company will notify owners on March 15 to bring their cars to a dealer, where the fix will be applied.
