The Mini Electric – like a Georgian-style country house that’s just been built – takes appealing retro aesthetics and gives them a thoroughly modern twist.
In fact, while the Mini has its roots in the Fifties, this version of the car has the heart of a Generation Z eco-warrior. It runs purely on electricity as the name suggests, yet – with 181bhp – it’s more powerful than the petrol-powered Cooper S.
MINI Electric
By electric car standards, it’s attractively priced, managing to undercut a lot of its rivals, including the Honda E. However, before you rush to put down your deposit, it’s worth bearing in mind a couple of things.
Firstly, one of the reasons the Mini Electric can be temptingly priced is that it doesn’t have a very big battery, and the official range is only around 145 miles. You won’t even get that far in real-world driving, and don’t expect Tesla-esque charging speeds when you do need a top-up.
Secondly, squeezing the battery under the rear seats has reduced the amount of space in the back compared with a conventionally powered Mini (and there wasn’t a huge amount to begin with).
If you would like to know more about Solar Panels and the PowerBanx range of home battery systems, and get a free instant quote, please complete our online form:
Small electric cars make a lot of sense for commuting, city life and slashing your running costs. Here, we pick out the best ones to buy in the UK right now
Electric cars have also come a long way since the infamous G-Wiz arrived on the scene, especially when it comes to the most compact EVs on the market today. Thanks largely to big improvements in the package of EVs and the amount of range available from their batteries, carmakers can build more convincing and usable small zero-emissions models.
Plus, since small EVs have smaller batteries on board, charging them up is quick, and you can expect your running costs to be far cheaper than even the most economical small petrol cars. However, electric cars, even ones this size, are still more expensive to buy than their petrol-powered counterparts, so it’s worth considering the purchase price as well as the running costs when you buy.
Peugeot e-208 (Image: Peugeot)
It’s only a matter of time before the gap closes though, with sub-£20,000 EVs on the way from Volkswagen, Cupra and Renault, to name but a few. If you are concerned about cost, you can check out our list of the cheapest electric cars you can buy right now – but you’re here for the best small electric cars, so read on to find out our top picks.
If you would like to know more about Solar Panels and the PowerBanx range of home battery systems, and get a free instant quote, please complete our online form:
One of the biggest concerns about electric cars is what happens to the batteries
They are historically difficult to recycle and could result in waste mountains . BMW UK has partnered with Off Grid Energy to provide second-life solutions for batteries decommissioned from its electric cars. Batteries are being used by the energy storage firm for mobile charging stations. Prototype device has been built using lithium-ion modules from a Mini Electric.
One of the biggest criticisms of electric cars is what happens to their high-powered batteries once they degrade and have to be decommissioned from plug-in vehicles.
Not only are EV batteries expensive for owners to replace, high-skilled workforces are required to extract valuable metals inside them, and even then they are difficult to recycle – and this could lead to huge waste mountains, experts have warned.
German car maker BMW says it has found a resolution for its high-mileage electric vehicles, giving their batteries a second-life use as mobile power units to provide charging solutions for other plug-in cars.
BMW i3 and i3S 120Ah (Image: BMW Group)
The auto brand will supply a British energy storage firm with decommissioned battery modules from electric BMW and Mini models that can be used in mobile power units.
The aim is to provide a sustainable second-use model for the batteries, which lose capacity over time and after years of use are deemed no longer efficient for electric cars.
As part of a new partnership with the car giant, Off Grid Energy has produced its first prototype mobile charging device, which is powered by lithium-ion battery modules extracted from a Mini Electric development vehicle.
It has a 40kWh capacity delivering a 7.2kW fast charge and will be used at BMW and Mini UK events over the next year.
As more battery modules become available over time, it says it can produce combined systems with a capacity of up to 180kWh from multiple electric vehicle batteries, which will be able to provide charges at rates of up to 50kW.
‘When these units are used to displace conventional ways of generating temporary power, the battery modules will at least double the CO2 reduction achieved in their original use in the car, continuing their positive impact in reducing carbon emissions,’ says the energy storage company.
Commenting on the partnership, Graeme Grieve, ceo at BMW Group UK, said: ‘BMW Group will have 25 electrified models on the roads by 2023 – half of them fully electric.
‘We are delighted to work with Off Grid Energy to find a sustainable way of continuing to use these valuable batteries, even after they have put in many years of service in our electrified cars.’
Like many electric models on the market, batteries in BMW and Mini cars have a warranty of eight years or 100,000 miles.
After this period the battery could still retain up to 80 per cent of its initial capacity, according to the vehicle maker.
However, it concedes that it is ‘inevitable’ that as EVs get older their batteries will no longer function at an optimum level for the car.
According to battery degradation calculations by Canadian firm Geotab, the average capacity loss for electric and plug-in hybrid cars is an estimated 12 per cent after six years – essentially dropping 2 per cent capacity annually.
BMW says despite its car batteries declining in performance – significant enough to retire the unit from a vehicle – it can continue to serve a secondary use purpose as a mobile power source as part of its sustainability and resource efficiency strategy.
BMW Group ceo, Oliver Zipse, said: ‘How we use resources will decide the future of our society – and of the BMW Group. As a premium car company, it is our ambition to lead the way in sustainability. That is why we are taking responsibility here and now.’
Earlier this year, Warwick University announced it had created a ‘fast grading’ system for second-life car batteries to determine if they could be purposed after being decommissioned from vehicles, using Nissan Leaf EV power supplies for the study.
If the battery’s end of life capacity is less than 70 per cent, the report says they can be reused for less demanding second life applications such as domestic and industrial energy storage.
The university said: ‘Graded second-life battery packs can provide reliable and convenient energy storage options to a range of customers: from electric roaming products – providing electricity for customers on the move, to home storage products – enabling customers with solar panels to store their energy generated.
‘More crucially, the packs can be used for storage allowing increased intermittent renewable energy sources on the grid, without putting security of supply at risk.’
Professor David Greenwood from WMG, University of Warwick, added: ‘Automotive batteries deliver some great environmental benefits, but they consume a lot of resources in doing so.
‘Opening up a second life for batteries improves both the environmental and the economic value we draw from those resources before they need recycling.’
If you would like to know more about Solar Panels and the PowerBanx range of home battery systems, and get a free instant quote, please complete our online form:
As it turns out, not all electric cars are created equal
Electric cars are not absolute newcomers to the car industry anymore. Over the past five years or so, most carmakers have churned out at least one electric car with plans to release a handful of others over the coming decade or so. The charging infrastructure has grown, too.
While this is obviously good news, it also leaves us (and the customer) with quite a big pond of EVs to choose from. To add more to the confusion and indecision, electric cars come in all shapes and sizes, set in motion by just one electric motor, two, or even three, and, obviously, very different price tags. Long story short, picking your next electric car might leave you scratching the top of your head. We get it.
Fret not, though. We’ve been kindly invited by Romania’s leading car outlet, Automarket, to an eight-day, eight-car real-life experiment that set out to discover just how good (or bad) the latest electric cars are in actual traffic both in and outside the city. What followed was to be known as Electric Romania 2020, basically a workshop on wheels powered by Vitesco Technologies, joined by other partners such as Michelin. The experience helped us better digest and understand both the strengths and shortcomings of today’s electric car: range-wise but also in terms of comfort, dynamics, user friendliness, tech-savviness, and overall liveability.
Porsche Taycan Turbo S (Image: Porsche)
This is where I started feeling like doing my dissertation paper all over again. Firstly, Electric Romania was thought out and designed as a tour of Romania done with EVs.
In case you’re asking why eight days, well, the backbone of the tour consisted of eight cars – all launched in 2020 on the Romanian market – and 14 journalists and content creators that would sample the said cars.
Basically, you got to drive another car each day, and the end of which you had to fill in a form with various bits of information: distance travelled, total time of travel, charging times, how much battery you had left at the destination, how much electricity went into the battery during charging, average speed, and so on.
So, each electric car was put through its paces over eight days, but every time by a different driver with a completely different set of driving habits than the one before him and on a different route. This included highways, winding A- and B-roads through the mountainside and hillside, as well as flat, plain-splitting roads where the elevation didn’t change much.
As for the car lineup itself, this is it, in the exact order we drove them:
Porsche Taycan
Renault Zoe
Volkswagen ID.3
Audi e-tron Sportback
Hyundai Kona Electric
Kia e-Niro
Mini Cooper SE
Peugeot e-2008
From here on, each car’s battery pack, electric motor (or motors), range, other specs as well as driving impressions will be presented as it follows.
Porsche had to get its first electric car right. And good God, it did. The Taycan Turbo is not just a flurry of performance, but a smile magnet. Sitting behind the wheel in the handful of traffic jams that slowed us down is the best way to enjoy the most honest smiles I’ve been treated with in a luxury car. Some people see you in Mercedes-AMG S63 or in a Panamera Turbo and you can just read either envy or loathing on their faces. With the Taycan, it’s the complete opposite: candid, genuine smiles from folks of all ages, walking on the street or driving in the next lane.
When you’re not sitting in a traffic jam, the Taycan Turbo’s personality can flip from tame to psycho as quick as it can go from naught to 60 mph: three seconds flat with Launch Control, on its way to a top speed of 260 kph (162 mph). The acceleration is brutal. You can easily squeeze a lot of squeal out of the wider-than-life rear tires from a standstill and with a drop of bad luck, you can even fracture a vertebra before the electronic nannies kick in or you decide to lift off. Even at highway speeds, smashing the accelerator will make the Taycan squat then shoot straight up ahead. The back of your head never leaves the headrest. Even if it wants, it can’t. At this point, I’m scared just thinking of what the Turbo S can do.
For a car this wide and long, city cruising is surprisingly swift and easy, but it’s the outer roads that make your spine tingle inside the Taycan. When on, the Launch Control feature triggers the Overboost function that unlocks the Turbo’s 500 kilowatts (670 hp, 680 PS) and 850 Newton-meters (627 pound-feet) coming from two electric motors fed by the 83.7-kWh battery pack (that’s the net, usable capacity – gross capacity according to Porsche literature is 93.4 kWh).
If you would like to know more about Solar Panels and the PowerBanx range of home battery systems, and get a free instant quote, please complete our online form:
Ten years ago, Mini experimented with an all-electric car which it called the Mini E.
We tested it, even though it never went on general sale, because instead it went to companies and selected members of the public who undertook real-world trials of the car.
Now Mini is producing a proper full production EV.
MINI Electric
It’s called the Mini Electric and uses the three-door body style.
You can bet that the other models will soon be electrified too.
The key news is that the battery pack is fitted into the Mini without robbing the car of any legroom or luggage space.
This is a relief because the three-door hatchback isn’t the most spacious of small cars as it is.
Driving the front wheels is a 182bhp electric motor which ironically is the same horsepower as the 2.0-litre petrol engine in the Cooper S – but electrification has added 145kg of weight.
Mini claims a range of between 124 and 144 miles. On our test drive in Oxfordshire in cold and windy weather, we got nearer 100 miles.
But data gleaned from current Mini owners revealed that, on average, they drive no more than 25 miles a day so this range will be entirely adequate.
The Mini Electric is supplied with a three-pin domestic charging cable. But most owners will want to buy a wallbox for home and a 11kW cable.
If you would like to know more about Solar Panels and the PowerBanx range of home battery systems, and get a free instant quote, please complete our online form:
Mini’s new electric hatchback won’t break records on range or usability but has plenty of brand-typical zip and driver appeal. Isn’t bad value relative to other EVs, either
What is it?
Another weeknight, then; must be time to read about another brand-new electric supermini – and this time it’s a British-built one, the Mini Electric. If somehow you haven’t already concluded as much, or you’ve been living under a solar panel, 2020 is definitely looking like the year to finally replace that second family car with something more socially responsible.
MINI Electric
That’s because a glut of slightly pricey but virtuously sustainably powered, all-electric compact hatchbacks is about to emerge onto the UK market, as Volkswagen, Honda, Peugeot and Vauxhall all finally get around to becoming fully paid up members of the the zero-emissions club. Renault, Smart, Hyundai and Kia, meanwhile, have all busily refreshed and updated their runners and riders.
Most of these newbies are set to cost roughly the same amount of money, of course, and most will be positioned in much the same way. So will the sudden rush in supply be met with an equivalent and lasting appetite to adopt? Suffice it to say, the industry will be watching very closely indeed. But if any one car-maker in the incoming pack already has pedigree in making major commercial hay with a premium-priced small car, and might therefore be best-placed to simply carry on doing so, it’s probably the one we haven’t mentioned yet: Mini.
BMW’s most famous British export brand has proven time and again over the last two decades that it can find buyers for its cars for even more than the kind of cash that it’s about to ask for the new Mini Electric – and that’s without a public mood of social responsibility driving customers towards those cars in quite the same way that is about to benefit this new one. Rather than whether it will actually sell, then, the bigger question encircling the new Mini Electric might actually concern whether it is quite the usable modern EV you may be hoping or waiting for.
If you would like to know more about Solar Panels and the PowerBanx range of home battery systems, and get a free instant quote, please complete our online form:
Mini, Vauxhall Corsa and Fiat 5oo will join rapidly expanding European EV market
Europe’s carmakers are gearing up to make 2020 the year of the electric car, according to automotive analysts, with a wave of new models launching as the world’s biggest manufacturers scramble to lower the carbon dioxide emissions of their products.
Previous electric models have mostly been targeted at niche markets, but 2020 will see the launch of flagship electric models with familiar names, such as the Mini, the Vauxhall Corsa and the Fiat 500.
Vauxhall Corsa-e (Image: Vauxhall.co.uk)
The number of electric vehicle (EV) models available to European buyers will jump from fewer than 100 to 175 by the end of 2020, according to data firm IHS Markit. By 2025 there will be more than 330, based on an analysis of company announcements.
The new supply will cater to a rapidly expanding market as demand for petrol-powered vehicles gradually recedes. UK EV sales will rise from 3.4% of all vehicles sold in 2019 to 5.5% in 2020 – or from 80,000 this year to 131,000 in 2020 – according to forecasts from Bloomberg New Energy Finance. By 2026 electric vehicle sales will account for a fifth of sales in the UK, the forecasts show. Similar predictions from LMC Automotive suggest 540,000 electric cars will be sold across the EU in 2020, up from 319,000 over the course of 2019.
New European Union rules come into force on 1 January that will heavily penalise carmakers if average carbon dioxide emissions from the cars they sell rise above 95g per kilometre. If carmakers exceed that limit, they will have to pay a fine of €95 (£79) for every gram over the target, multiplied by the total number of cars they sell.
The excess emissions bill would have been £28.6bn on 2018 sales figures, according to analysis by the automotive consultancy Jato Dynamics, illustrating the extent of the change required by carmakers over a short period of time. Jato analyst Felipe Muñoz said there will still be large fines, as companies keep selling profitable internal combustion engine cars and struggle to bring down EV prices to parity with their fossil-fuel peers.
If you would like to know more about Solar Panels and the PowerBanx range of home battery systems, and get a free instant quote, please complete our online form:
Mini’s first mass-production electric car will start from under £25k and will arrive in UK dealers in early 2020
Mini’s long-awaited first attempt at a mass production electric car has been revealed, mating the brand’s classic three-door hatchback with an electric powertrain offering Cooper S performance in a package claimed to be more affordable than every rival.
It has been dubbed the Mini Cooper S E in markets outside the UK, but the brand has chosen to retain the Mini Electric name in Britain to avoid confusion and clearly differentiate it from the standard range. However, the Cooper S badges will remain (alongside new E badging) to denote the performance level.
The most significant development, however, is the car’s relatively low price point: including the government grant for electric vehicles, it will start from around £24,400 – said to be less than an ‘equivalent spec level’ petrol Cooper S.
MINI Electric
Mini claims development of the Electric involved balancing the car’s ability to travel an acceptable distance on a charge for a car aimed at cities with the desired performance level and aggressive price point.
The compromise that results is a WLTP-certified range of 124-144 miles – about the same as the Honda E, but less than more mainstream rivals such as the Peugeot e-208 and Vauxhall Corsa-e. It achieves this through a powertrain taken from the BMW i3s, making 181bhp and 199lb ft of torque.
That’s mated to a 32.6kWh battery mounted beneath the passenger seat in a T-shape. Unlike the i3, the motor powers the front wheels only. Resulting performance is strong for the class: 0-62mph takes 7.3sec, with the top speed limited to 93mph. Mini says it is also capable of charging from flat to 80% in 35 minutes via a 50kW charge point through a standard public charging cable. Via an 11kW wall box, 0-80% charge can be achieved in 150 minutes, or 210 minutes to full.
New model will have list price of £24,400, with first deliveries expected in early 2020
Six decades after the original Mini first rolled off the production line in Oxford, its owner BMW has unveiled a new electric version it hopes will herald a new era – and help the German carmaker meet looming EU emissions targets.
BMW said it had 15,000 expressions of interest before order books open on Tuesday. The first deliveries to customers are expected in the first quarter of 2020, with a list price of £24,400, after the government’s plug-in car grant of £3,500 has been applied.
MINI Cooper Concept (Image: MINI)
The investment in the new Mini will preserve the jobs of about 5,000 workers at the Oxford plant at an uncertain time for an industry awaiting Brexit clarity. The plant produced 234,501 Mini and Mini Clubman cars in 2018, an increase of 4.8% year on year.
While the original Mini was built by the British Motor Corporation in response to fuel rationing following the Suez crisis of 1956, the latest version will help BMW, which relaunched the Mini brand in 2000, reduce the average emissions of the cars it sells to meet EU carbon dioxide emissions limits.
Oliver Zipse, the BMW board member in charge of production, said: “We are entering an era in which electric cars will become a normal choice for our customers.
“The Mini Electric will kick off our new model offensive for fully electric vehicles.”
It has taken a decade but at last there’s an electric Mini that we can buy. Or there will be soon.
Our drive of this prototype is a prelude to the launch of the finished article at the end of this year. That car is called the Mini Cooper SE, the S implying equivalence to the 189bhp petrol Cooper S and the E that it’s electric. Its motor puts out 181bhp and 199lb ft of torque, the latter slightly adrift of the S’s 221lb ft, but they’re comparable.
It has taken a decade but at last there’s an electric Mini that we can buy. Or there will be soon.
MINI Cooper Electric Concept (Image: MINI)
Our drive of this prototype is a prelude to the launch of the finished article at the end of this year. That car is called the Mini Cooper SE, the S implying equivalence to the 189bhp petrol Cooper S and the E that it’s electric. Its motor puts out 181bhp and 199lb ft of torque, the latter slightly adrift of the S’s 221lb ft, but they’re comparable.
Although there was a 2013 electric Mini concept, the 2009 Mini E project was a more substantial undertaking, being part of a test programme in which more than 500 vehicles were publicly trialled. This full-production electric Mini shares plenty of characteristics with the 2009 Mini E, among them brisk-to-rapid, instantly available acceleration, notable deceleration when you release the throttle and a pleasingly easy drive.
But there are also substantial differences, not the least of them being the restoration of the rear seats and a boot. Both of these spaces had been sacrificed to bulky battery and power electronics in the experimental car. The new version’s battery occupies the tunnel running the length of the cockpit and the area previously taken up by the fuel tank to occupy a T-shaped space, requiring almost no changes to the Mini’s body-in-white.
That there have been any at all is because BMW, Mini’s parent company, did not anticipate that the power density of batteries would improve fast enough to allow a viable pack to be installed in the current Mini hatch. In fact, the battery pack has slightly fewer cells than the BMW i3’s, offering 92Ah rather than 94Ah of stored energy, and its protrusion below the floor has necessitated a slight ride height rise. Despite this, the SE’s centre of gravity is lower than the Cooper S’s, promising sharp handling.
