A Rolls Royce Without an Engine Is the Best Electric Car to Rent

A grey Rolls Royce Spectre pulling away from a valet stand in Beverly Hills makes one sound, the tires on the pavement, and that silence is why it's the best electric car to rent. It's the first electric Rolls Royce, a four seat coupe with 577 hp and no engine at all. Ours rents for $1,795 a day. If the drive matters more than the arrival, the Tesla Model S Plaid at $395 is the other right answer.

Picture the valet walking the key over while the car sits there doing nothing you can hear. You press the button and the door swings shut under power behind you. People on the sidewalk turn around anyway, because a car that big and that quiet reads as a mistake until they see the grille.

What electric changes about the rental

An electric car changes two things about a rental, the sound and the planning. The sound is the part you feel, because a V12 announces itself at every light and a Spectre doesn't. So the attention it gets comes later, when people notice it's already moving.

The planning is the part nobody tells you about. Every car in our fleet includes 100 miles a day, and multi-day rentals pool the allowance. With a gas car that's the only number you watch, but with an electric car range becomes the second number. The Spectre is rated at about 260 miles on a charge from its 102 kWh battery. That's plenty for a day around town, from breakfast in Newport Beach to dinner and back. A long desert run is different. For that you plan a charging stop and tell us at booking.

The best electric car to rent for an arrival

The Spectre wins on arrival because of its doors. They span 4.6 meters fully open, the widest doors Rolls Royce builds, and they close from a button. You don't reach back for a handle, you step out, stand up, and let the car finish the job while you walk away.

Ours is grey outside with an orange and black cabin. From across the street the grey reads quiet, almost plain, until the door opens and the orange becomes the whole story. Park it at a hotel on Rodeo Drive and the gap between the outside and the inside does more work than any color could.

It drives the way it looks. Both motors send 664 lb-ft to the road the instant you ask, so it leaves a stop with a shove instead of a build. Rear steering tucks the nose into turns tighter than a car this long should manage. One pedal driving is the default, and the brake feels different for the first few stops. Give yourself a mile before you trust it.

The deposit on our Spectre is $2,000, a hold on your card and not a charge. Extra miles run $5 each. We run one Spectre, and weekend dates go weeks ahead, so four to six weeks of notice is the safe number.

The Model S Plaid, for the two seconds you'll talk about

The Tesla Model S Plaid is the opposite booking. Nobody on the sidewalk cares much when it pulls up, because it's a red four door sedan with a white interior, and from the outside it looks like a car you'd take to the office. The reason to rent it happens inside, and only the people in the seats feel it.

Three motors make 1,020 hp and 1,050 lb-ft. Sixty mph comes in 1.99 seconds, which makes it the quickest accelerating car in our fleet. Try it from a stop on Newport Coast Drive on the climb toward Pelican Hill. There's no build up and no noise to warn anyone, and most passengers laugh the first time. A phone filming their face is half the reason people book it.

Away from that launch it's a quiet five seat sedan with a trunk at each end. The one thing to know is the yoke, a steering wheel shaped like a rectangle with no top. It needs more hand over hand work in a tight turn than a round wheel. For a Tesla rental that has to carry four friends and still make them grab the door handle, nothing else in the fleet does both for $395 a day. Teslas go out charged and come back charged.

The Cybertruck, the EV rental people stop to ask about

The Tesla Cybertruck is built for everyone else's reaction. Its body is bare stainless steel, which can't be painted, so ours run a black wrap. The wrap reads as a flat shadow in direct sun instead of throwing the sky back at you. Strangers ask if it's real at almost every stop.

It's quicker than it looks, with 600 hp from two motors and 60 mph in 4.1 seconds. The steering is steer by wire, meaning there's no mechanical link between the wheel and the front tires. The software changes the ratio with speed, so on a U-turn across a wide street in Irvine your hands never leave nine and three, even at full lock. After ten minutes a normal car feels slow to turn.

We run two, the Cybertruck AWD at $395 a day and the Cybertruck at $495. Both are the same 600 hp truck, and the difference is in the equipment list, not behind the wheel. Five seats, a lockable 6 foot bed, and a tow rating of 11,000 pounds make it the only electric car rental here that works for a group with gear.

Where the BMW i8 fits, and why it isn't fully electric

Here's the honest part. The BMW i8 isn't an electric car, it's a plug-in hybrid, meaning a car with a battery and an engine that work together. It gets about 18 miles on electric power before its 1.5 liter three cylinder joins in. We list it here because the first thing it does is pull away in silence, and for plenty of renters that moment is the point.

Ours is white with a black interior, and the butterfly doors lift up and out. On a slow exit from a hotel forecourt on Rodeo Drive, the front electric motor moves the car without a sound. Push the lever into Sport and the engine wakes behind your shoulders. Combined output is 369 hp and 60 mph comes in 4.2 seconds.

It's $595 a day with a $1,000 deposit, and the two rear seats suit kids more than adults while the trunk takes a soft bag. It's the right pick if you want the doors and the silence but don't want to think about range at all.

Range, rates, and deposits in one place

• Rolls Royce Spectre, grey over orange and black. $1,795 a day, $2,000 deposit, $5 per extra mile. 577 hp, 0 to 60 in 4.4 seconds, 4 seats, about 260 miles of rated range.
• BMW i8, white over black. $595 a day, $1,000 deposit, $4 per extra mile. 369 hp combined, 0 to 60 in 4.2 seconds, 4 seats, about 18 miles on electric power.
• Tesla Cybertruck, black wrap. $395 to $495 a day, $1,000 deposit, $4 per extra mile. 600 hp, 0 to 60 in 4.1 seconds, 5 seats.
• Tesla Model S Plaid, red over white. $395 a day, $1,000 deposit, $4 per extra mile. 1,020 hp, 0 to 60 in 1.99 seconds, 5 seats.

Every car here includes 100 miles a day. Rent for 3 or 4 days and the rate drops 10%, and a full week takes 20% off. The discount comes from the length of the rental, not from asking for it.

Charging, miles, and the long day

Most electric car rentals never need a plug. A day in Beverly Hills or a night out in Newport Beach uses a fraction of the range, and the car comes back with plenty left. The trouble starts when a day trip quietly turns into a road trip. If you know the drive runs long, tell us at booking so the charging stop and the extra miles are planned before you leave instead of billed after.

The requirements don't change because the car is electric. You need to be 18 or older, with a valid license and full coverage insurance in your own name. We deliver across Los Angeles, Orange County, San Diego, the Inland Empire, and Palm Springs, so the car is waiting at the curb when you come down.

An electric car is the one exotic that gets louder the less noise it makes. Pick the Spectre when people will be watching you arrive, and the Plaid when the only audience is in the passenger seat.