Mini introduces all-new Mini Electric

Order now and you can have a Mini Electric outside your house next March in return for a £500 deposit and £300 a month in a new lease deal. The full price to buy is £24,400 after the government’s electric car grant, undercutting not only rivals but also Mini’s own petrol-powered Cooper S (£25,390 in auto form) whose performance the Electric car is claimed to match. Mini clearly wants to electrify not just its cars but also the marketplace.

Despite weighing a hefty 145kg more than the petrol Cooper S, the Mini Electric sprints from 0-62mph in 7.3 seconds, just one tenth slower. Top speed is limited to 93mph. The Mini brand’s first fully electric model is available as a three-door hatchback only.

Front-wheel-drive and using the latest synchronous electric motor developed by the BMW Group, the Mini Electric has 184PS (181bhp) backed up by (270Nm) 199lb ft of torque. Twelve packs of lithium-ion cells are arranged in a T-shape in the vehicle floor between the front seats and below the rear seats.

One advantage of this arrangement is that the batteries do not impede on boot space – which remains at 211 litres expanding to 731 litres with the rear backrests folded down. Another advantage is the low-set batteries lower the car’s centre of gravity by 30mm.

Mini says this, along with revised suspension and less weight over the car’s nose, “takes trademark Mini go-kart driving feeling to new heights”. Dynamic stability control is standard and there are four drive modes – from Sport to a range-enhancing Green setting – while a separate toggle switch provides a choice of intense or low-level power regeneration.

The battery capacity is rated at 32.6 kWh which offers a range (under the WLTP protocol) of between 124-144 miles. The charging plug replaces the petrol filler above the right-hand rear wheel. The Mini Electric comes with both home and public charging cables and the company says a 50kW DC fast-charging station can give an 80 per cent charge in 35 minutes.

Inside there’s a digital dashboard with a 5.5-inch colour screen showing speed and range information, as well as a new navigation system with real time traffic info. Outside there are LED lights, blanked-off grille and embossed Mini Electric logos.

The entry car, which starts at £24,400 and comes with all the essentials, is part of a three-tier range that shows how hard Mini is trying to impress in the value for money stakes.

A mid-range model (cloth/leather-look upholstery, park distance control, rear camera, seat heating, driver assistance pack) costs £2,000 more. Add a further £4k and you get a Mini Electric with the works:  leather, park assist, Harmon Kardon sound system, head-up display, panoramic sun roof, matrix LED lights, larger infotainment touch screen, wireless phone charging and a choice of five alloy wheels and six exterior body colours.

Before its unveiling, 15,000 people had expressed an interest in the car, says the company. The Mini Electric will run down the same Mini line at the Oxford plant as the rest of the range, with total production of 1,000 cars a day.

Is this the right car at the right time, just as Sir Alec Issigonis’s genius original Mini was in 1959? Mini UK director David George is sure: “We believe the Mini Electric could be a tipping point for those who have been thinking about choosing an electric car. We aim to introduce a whole new group of drivers in the UK to the fun and cost savings of electric driving, in a way only Mini can.”