Mini Electric 2019 review: first drive of first Mini EV

Much of the rest of the SE’s hardware was available when the i3 was launched in 2013, this production electric Mini sharing the i3’s synchronous electric motor, power electrics and lithium ion battery cells. A more significant difference is that the Mini is front drive, the motor living in its usual home beneath the bonnet, whereas the BMW i3 is rear drive, its motor located below the boot floor.

This Mini weighs more than the i3, of course, because its core structure is steel rather than lightweight carbonfibre, the penalty being an extra 80kg. Compared with the petrol-engined 2.0-litre automatic Cooper S that Mini considers the Electric to be the equivalent of, it weighs an extra 130kg – not bad for an EV. The additional weight shifts the axle loads rearwards, to a more favourable 54:46 front to rear rather than 60:40.

The Cooper SE’s more powerful i3S motor yields a 0-62mph time of “between seven and eight seconds”, says BMW, and similar top speed of around 95mph. The official performance statistics have yet to be confirmed. That includes the Cooper SE’s range, which is reckoned to be equivalent to the less powerful standard i3’s at 160 miles in real-world use. That means this EV is not one of the latest breed, Jaguar I-Pace, Hyundai Kona and Kia e-Niro among them, that can deliver the more usable range achieved by Tesla.

However, the Mini is smaller than any of these, of course, and is more likely to be a short-distance car. As the experiments with the earlier, 90-mile-range Mini E demonstrated, this is less inconvenient in practice than it sounds.

The evolution of that car into this, which spans a complete generation change incidentally, sees this Mini’s usable package uncompromised by the change of motive power. It’s entirely familiar to sit in, too, bar some of the instrument displays, which were not yet ready for viewing, and the deletion of the handbrake.

Moving off is quite different, despite one’s thumbing of the starter toggle of conventionally propelled Minis. You hear a lightly jangling, otherworldly start-up jingle to confirm that your electrified Mini is on, engage ‘D’ and whirr off, to the aural accompaniment of not much at all unless the tyres are riding a coarse road surface.

The go is instant if you want it to be, as with every pure EV, and there’s plenty of it. There’s plenty of slowing down, too, if you select the strongest of the Mini’s recuperation modes, which decelerates the car at a rate of 0.19g. That may not sound so much, but it’s easily enough that you can dispense with the brake pedal in most urban circumstances.

Alternatively, you can flick a dashboard toggle to diminish it to 0.11g, these two values sitting either side of the deceleration rate of an i3. It’s a shame that the toggle sits distantly in a row of switches at the base of the centre console, though. The Kia e-Niro’s paddles are a more convenient way to tune your deceleration rate.

So how does this Mini handle? Most Minis of the past 60 years, including most of the BMW-era cars, have served the kind of happy-golucky handling that allows you to chuck the car into a bend and adjust your route with the accelerator, a particularly bold fling-cum-throttle drop producing a (usually) helpful slide from the rear. And all with very little body roll. That’s exactly what you get with this ampere-powered version.

On a coned test track, the Mini Electric proves to be almost as entertaining a drive as a Mini with a manual transmission, more than one gear and an enthusiastic exhaust note, a succession of laps producing an entertainingly familiar physical experience, if a different aural one.

Before discovering that, though, comes a demonstration of a new method for controlling a surfeit of torque when it’s applied to a shortfall of grip. We drive the electric Mini onto a wetted section of Tarmac and floor the throttle, as instructed. It launches, fast, and without a hint of wheelspin or, more telling, spot braking of either front wheel.

That’s because this traction control system uses the engine management system to staunch the excess torque at source, rather than restoring grip with a momentary clenching of calipers. It’s a less wasteful way of modulating power and it seems to work well, both from standing starts and when cutting through corners.

Less impressive is the springy, almost feel-free steering, which has yet to be calibrated. This apart, and the occasional sensing of its extra heft, this Mini handles like a Mini. It’s likely to cost close to £30,000, less any grant, but will come slightly better equipped than the Cooper S when it goes on sale late this year.

The first UK deliveries from Mini’s Oxford plant are due in March 2020. It makes a fitting development for the Mini’s 60th anniversary, and if hardly a ground-breaker, particularly in range terms, it should usefully widen the appeal of electric cars.

Mini Electric specification

Where Munich, Germany Price £29,000-£30,000 (est) On sale December Engine Electric, synchronous Power 181bhp Torque 199lb ft Gearbox Single gear, fixed ratio Kerb weight 1350kg Top speed 95mph (est) 0-62mph 7.5sec (est) Range tbc CO2 0g/km Rivals BMW i3S, Nissan Leaf, Renault Zoe

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