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.

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.

Read more: Autocar

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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 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.

Read more: Autocar

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.

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.”

Read more: The Guardian

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.

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.

Read more: Autocar

Performance-focused Cooper S E will be first for the brand and the first all-electric hot hatchback on sale

Mini’s first electric car will also be the industry’s first electric hot hatch, engineering sources in Germany have revealed.

Rather than a sole focus on economy and eking out range, Mini is developing its electric car with performance in mind. To that end, the model will be badged Cooper S E when it is unveiled later this year to reflect its performance hierarchy in the Mini range.

The Cooper S E will be based on the Mini three-door hatchback. That car’s UKL1 platform wasn’t originally designed with an all-electric model in mind, so has been adapted to accommodate the technology.

The BMW i3 S’s 181bhp electric motor is understood to be the most likely power source for the new Mini, meaning it will give little away to the 189bhp 2.0-litre engine of the Cooper S. The added weight of the batteries will be largely offset by the instant torque and lack of gears, meaning similar acceleration times.

Read more: Autocar