ON TEST: MINI ELECTRIC
She’s electric!
Andrew Walker rekindles his love affair with MINI – and finds the all-electric version is a suitable model to carry the famous brand into a new era of motoring
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s a past owner of both a 1980’s MINI and the newer version circa 2004, I was really looking forward to driving the MINI electric. Thanks to lockdown, our original loan date in April was postponed and I finally got my hands on one in late September. I’m unashamedly a MINI fan and as I found out, the electric version does an awful of MINI things well. For a start it looks and feels, well, like a normal MINI. So factor in a plush, well thought out and funky cabin. With the 32.5 kWh battery 12 | December 2020 | Company Car & Van
located beneath the back seats and underneath the centre of the car, forming a T shape, you also get excellent handling and the bonus of a 0-62mph time of just 7.3 seconds from the 181bhp electric motor. It’s as close to a very fast dodgem car that I’ve encountered yet and is great fun both in town and on the motorway. So that customers and the public alike can tell that this is an electric MINI the range is offered with yellow trim panels and alloy wheels that replicate a three-pin plug socket. If you don’t want to shout your greenness to the world, don’t worry, because you can swap any
of the electric detailing for other designs, save the model’s yellow electric badge and filled-in grille. For starters, there are three specs of electric MINI offered, which are simply called Level 1, 2 or 3. Including the £3,000 Government grant, the Level 1 can be bought for £24,900. Each level adds slightly more kit but all models start with SatNav, Apple CarPlay, Android Auto, climate and cruise control. Level 2 costs an additional £2,000 but for that cash you get a parking camera, an interior lights package, rear view camera, heated front seats www.companycarandvan.co.uk
