ANYONE who’s been harassed by the big boss after hours can probably relate to Mihiar Ayoubi. For years, the director of engineering at Rolls-Royce Motor Cars had to field calls at ungodly hours from Torsten Muller-Otvos, his exacting chief executive.

Eventually, he learnt to respond on autopilot. “Torsten would call me in the middle of the night. At 2 am, I would see his number on my phone,” Ayoubi says. “I would automatically answer, ‘Yes, Torsten, it’s going to be a Rolls-Royce.’”

The “it” in question? The Spectre, the S$2.1 million two-door fastback tasked with ushering 119-year-old Rolls-Royce into the electric age. The job is a monumental one, because there is no turning back from here. Rolls wants out of the combustion engine game entirely by 2030.