MINI Electric

Bright spark MINI keeps all the fun

MINI fan Andrew Walker is delighted to find that the all-new electric version is as much fun to drive as it’s always been

As a past owner of both a 1980s MINI and the newer version circa 2004, I was really looking forward to driving the MINI Electric. I’m unashamedly a MINI fan and as I found out, the electric version does an awful of MINI things well.

For starters, it looks and feels like a normal MINI. So factor in a plush, well thought-out and funky cabin. With the 32.5 kWh battery 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 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 yellow electric badge and filled in grille.

There are three specs of electric MINI, called simply Level 1, Level 2 or Level 3. Entry model Level 1 is yours for £27,900. Each level adds slightly more kit, so for example, all models get SatNav, Apple CarPlay, Android Auto, climate and cruise control but Level 2s, for an additional £2,000, add a parking camera, an interior lights package, rear view camera, heated front seats and rear park distance control. Add another £2,000 for Level 3 and this brings a touch more luxury, with a Harman Kardon stereo, a panoramic glass sunroof, a larger central infotainment screen, full leather upholstery and parking assist.

Let’s tackle the ‘elephant in the room’ first and that’s the electric range. MINI claims it is 229km, which equates to 145 miles. When the MINI was delivered to Company Car & Van, the instrumentation said it was fully charged, with a range of 105 miles. So how then can it claim to be 145 miles? Well, it comes with four drive modes: Sport, Mid, Green and Green+, which turns off the air-con. Then there is a clever regeneration switch on the dashboard, which is located alongside the starter button. The regen alters the amount of regenertion on the go and what’s really good about it is that you can set it to high even when you’re driving on the motorway and it doesn’t spoil the ride.

We drove to Liverpool for a weekend break, a distance of 33 miles door to door, of which 27 miles was on the motorway. I left the MINI in Green+ as I expected the battery range would drop quickly. But it didn’t – quite the opposite, in fact.

We set off with a battery range of 105 miles and having driven 33 miles, expected the range to now show around 60-65 miles. But it showed 85 miles. It wasn’t a fluke; over the course of our week we found that by driving in Green or Green+ with the regeneration set at it’s highest we were able to save around a third of every journey in range. This is where MINI gets its claimed 145 mile range from. Clever, very clever.

Not having driven a three-door MINI for sometime, I had forgotten that it’s not very big inside. We’ve also owned a MINI Countryman and that’s a proper family car, so the lack of space in the three-door version is noticeable. To be fair, there’s decent enough room up front, but rear head and – especially – legroom, is poor. The boot will take four large holdalls though, which is a bonus, and there’s a shelf underneath which you can hide the two power cables, a home 3-pin and a 7kWh, which both fit neatly inside clever black bags.

Although I have a Rolec home charger, (more at www.rolecserv.com/home-charging) I took the opportunity to charge the MINI up at my local Tesco, where you can get two hours free when shopping plugged-in to their Podpoint chargers, and at Cheshire Oaks Shopping Village, which is home to a set of Chargemaster machines. A word of advice. Always download the charging company’s App so that you can take advantage of free charging where it’s offered.

As a driver’s car, the electric MINI is more fun to drive than most rivals. It’s easy to point into and out of a corner and comes with decent straight line power. It’s also very quiet and is comfortable in town, happy on the motorway and you can easily overtake slow-moving traffic if required. All-in-all, as an electric version of a MINI, it’s hard to fault.

For business customers there’s no CO2 emissions so BIK is set at zero, so if you can live with the limited range – the Peugeot e-208 and Vauxhall Corsa-e will get you closer to a 200 miles – then the only real competition comes from the decidedly retro Honda-e and Mazda MX-30, with their 100-mile ranges. Plainly, if you have a home charger and are lucky enough to have one at work too, range won’t be an issue. And if the range is still a problem, then it’s well to remember that the average daily commute by car in the UK is somewhere around 30 miles, although we’d stress that this is not a car for a 400-mile round trip.

TECH DATA

MINI Electric 2

Price: £29,900 Power: 32.5kWh battery 0-62mph: 7.3 seconds Top speed:93 mph Economy. 145 miles CO2: 0g/km

CC&V VERDICT

Despite rather than because of its range, you can enjoy the electric MINI with your heart as well as your head. Great to drive and 0% BIK. As an electric version of a MINI, it’s hard to fault.