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Faster & further, same appeal: MINI Cooper Electric First Drive

MINI’s total range renewal continues with the three-door Cooper Electric promising more power, more miles between charges and just as much fun.
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25 June 2024

What is it?

The launch of the new MINI Cooper Electric represents a significant point for the brand as it reinvents itself as an electric-only marque – a new petrol-engined Cooper recently went on sale and may look like the Cooper Electric, but is in fact a heavily updated previous-generation model whereas the Electric is all-new.

The Cooper Electric signifies a repositioning and simplification of the range, with model names such as MINI One passing into history. The future is about three EVs, the Cooper, the Countryman SUV (which we will be reviewing shortly and which is also the only all-new MINI also offered with a petrol engine) and a new coming-soon crossover sitting between them and dubbed Aceman. All three will be in showrooms before the end of 2024.

In MINI parlance Cooper once signified an engine – now it is applied to a family of cars, in three-door, five-door and later this year, convertible form. This time we are testing the car in classic three-door format.

According to product manager Chris Fryer, the new Cooper adds serious real-world advantages over the outgoing “hugely successful” MINI Electric which in its lifetime sold just over 24,500 units.  There are two models – the Cooper E now produces the same power levels as the outgoing Cooper SE, but with a range between charges increased by close on 50 miles to a WLTP-certified 190 miles, while the new SE, expected to take the great majority of sales, packs more power with a 0-62mph time of 6.7 seconds, but thanks to a larger battery offers a 250-mile range.

Fryer thinks the range improvements will make the new MINIs a far more appealing fleet and business proposition than their predecessors. “We are coming from only having one electric to having three, so Countryman will be popular with fleet customers but also Coopers and even the Aceman, for other reasons when that’s launched later in the year,” he told Business Motoring.

“(With the previous model) we very roughly did around 15% to fleet and we are going to be upping that considerably, way more than we’ve done before,” Fryer added.

Highly visible changes to the new car include a new styling regime dubbed ‘Charismatic Simplicity’ resulting in a smoother, more minimalist exterior, losing such long-lived design elements as the clam-shell bonnet and various add-ons, though retaining the signature MINI elements of circular headlamps and a now much more visible grille line, recalling the classic Minis of the British Leyland era and before.

Inside it is a similar story, the dash dominated by the huge central dial, which is now an OLEV touchscreen controlling most of the car’s functions, with far fewer separate switches than previous owners might have been used to and no instrument display ahead of the driver at all – everything is read from the touchscreen or, thankfully, a head-up display in the windscreen.

Computer-style software upgrades – apparently this car has jumped from BMW’s ‘operating system 5’ to system 9, see the central screen, as well as masterminding the car’s general functions, also providing some curious extras. These include a range of ‘Experiences’ which one can dial through by means of a switch and choose such aspects as the interior ambience and the noise – the MINI offers a range of acceleration audio, all of an electric variety with perhaps rightly, not the slightest attempt to replicate a traditional engine note.

Further technology includes the availability of a digital key for the first time, enabling access to the car using one’s phone and which can be passed on to a colleague, a digital personal assistant and augmented reality navigation. At junctions this projects a camera view ahead onto the navigation screen with direction markers, while an internal camera can be used to take selfies of the occupants but also will record the scene if the car is broken into.

The interior finish is interesting too, a knitted design in 90% polyester with much greater use of sustainable materials.

Three trim levels are available, dubbed Classic, Exclusive and Sport, with the latter having many of the John Cooper Works upgrades much desired by previous MINI owners. The specification of all models is now simpler, with a longer standard equipment list boasting navigation and parking assist among its highlights, and three simple options packs, of which SE models come with the first already.

MINI has also managed to make all the improvements without a major price hike. At £30,000 on the road the Cooper E remains equivalent to its predecessor while the expected bigger-selling SE will cost another  £4,500 – though adding the options packs will boost the bill somewhat.

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What do we think of it?

Opinions are already divided over the new minimalist exterior look of the MINI with some reviewers claiming it’s lost a bit of personality. In our opinion the visuals might do with a bit of extra detail though the simplicity does have some appeal, while also of course aiding aerodynamics in this age of electric range priorities.

It’s a similar story inside – the woven look of the dash surfaces is rather natty, while the very simple layout of the driver’s controls with almost everything overseen by the huge circular screen in the centre is actually quite easy to use once one gets used to it. This particular correspondent did miss the line of Star Wars pod-racer style toggle switches along the base though…

Earlier MINIs were quite heavily criticised for their lack of room inside, especially in the rear, and serial MINI owners might baulk at the news that this model is actually slightly smaller than its predecessor – with the exterior visual treatment making it look smaller still which is not a bad thing for a MINI. But the layout has been better packaged and having sat in the back, yes it is cosy though not adversely so unless you have particularly tall front-seat occupants – it’s certainly comparable to similar-sized rivals.

Business Motoring tested both the entry E model and the higher-powered SE – both have enjoyed power upgrades and certainly even the base model feels eager and pretty swift under hard acceleration. With the instant torque of the electric drivetrain overtaking is a simple, rapidly executed experience.

One other vital aspect has not been dialled out of this new MINI. Yes it is a more mature, grown-up EV version of the car, the reason why its creators expect much more fleet interest, but it also remains great fun to drive, which all MINIs should be.

On our test the wheel-on-each-corner design, allowing the MINI product team to keep recycling the over-used phrase of ‘go-kart handling’, ensured that a highly enjoyable day’s driving was spent on the twisty-turny B roads of the launch route in the Cotswolds. Meanwhile in the busier urban areas the car was as well-behaved as one would expect of a modern EV.

One must mention the ‘Experiences’, available through the central screen. There’s around half a dozen settings, with names such as ‘Core’, ‘Vivid’, ‘Timeless’ (our favourite), ‘Green’ (very irritating as it keeps lecturing the driver every time one accelerates) and yes ‘Go-kart’.

Dialling through the modes changes the graphic design of the touchscreen, the background colours on it and the head-up display, and the noise… The MINI offers a range of audio accompaniment most obvious on spirited acceleration, and very electronic. None of the assembled sounds are remotely like that of an engine, more how one might expect an EV in a science-fiction film to sound. Some will like this, others hate it, but it’s certainly a way of entertaining younger occupants of the car.

One other notable aspect of the new technology is a forward-facing camera on all bar base models, which comes to life as one approaches a junction and superimposes sat-nav direction symbols on the image. While there’s an argument for keeping one’s eyes on the road rather than a central screen, we are told it will also record and save evidence in the event of a collision, so it is useful.

Overall the new MINI Cooper Electric is an impressive package – it ticks all the ‘sensible’ boxes and with a range likely on the SE to exceed 200 miles in the real world will become a practical option for most fleet drivers – only those who spend all day in the car clocking up hundreds of motorway miles will have to reject it. And being a MINI, it remains a great deal of fun.

Performance

Tested model: MINI Cooper E / MINI Cooper SE

Max power:  184hp / 218hp

Max Torque: 290Nm /330Nm

Top speed:   99mph / 106mph

0-62mph:  7.3 seconds / 6.7 seconds

WLTP range:  190 miles / 250 miles

CO2 Emissions: 0g/km

BIK: 2%

OTR price: £30,000 / £34,500

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Andrew Charman

Andrew Charman has been a motoring journalist for more than 30 years, writing about vehicles, technology and the industry. He is a Guild of Motoring Writers committee member and has won several awards including for his business coverage.

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