It’s the MINI ELECTRIC – Modest Price, Modest Range

The MINI Electric is revealed as BMW finally gets an electric MINI ready to go, with a relatively modest price and an equally modest range.

We had a tease last month for the ELECTRIC Mini Cooper S E as BMW finally gets round to delivering what should be the perfect urban runaround. And here its is.

Despite expecting it to be the MINI Cooper S E, BMW has decided we’re simple souls in the UK, so although other markets will see the electric MINI badged as the MINI Cooper S E, in the UK it will just be the MINI Electric. But it looks to still get a ‘Cooper S’ badge. 

You might expect MINI’s ‘Premium’ pretensions to deliver an electric MINI with a big range and a big price tag, but instead we get a MINI Electric with a modest battery pack, commensurately modest range and, by EV standards, a relatively modest price.

The range comes in at the same sort of 124-144 miles as the Honda E – clearly a MINi electric competitor – with a 32.6kWh battery pack delivering juice to the 181bhp electric motor borrowed from the BMW i3 and delivering 0-62mph in 7.3 seconds.

The range may not be great, but the modest battery pack means it’ll charge to 80 per cent in 35 minutes on a 50kW charger, or 150 minutes on an 11kW charger.

Cosmetic changes to the three-door MINI Electric include a grey and yellow blanked grille and, if you want it, the same yellow splatted around on the mirrors and wheels, redesigned bumpers and alloys which look like a 3-pin plug.

Inside there’s a new digital instrument cluster and an extra mode – Green+ which dials down stuff like Air Con to help range – and charging mapping on the Sat Nav.

The MINI Electric comes in three flavours, with the entry-level model starting at £24,400 after grant. Production starts in November, but it’ll be spring 2020 before the first UK cars arrive.