The Mini Electric is superb to drive, but also fundamentally flawed
At last it’s happened! A genuinely fun, affordable electric car has been parked outside my house for the last week. I’ve enjoyed bombing about in it more than any EV I can recall, probably since I last drove a BMW i3. Trust Mini to not let the tedious imperative of changing powertrain get in the way of its owners having a good time. The Mini Electric feels light and exceptionally nimble by EV standards. Turn into a corner while snapping the throttle shut and it will instantly and sharply tighten its line. Briefly, it will even oversteer. It’s fast too.
Yet in all other regards, it’s still a Mini, still with that funky premium-feeling interior, those cheeky looks and ride quality which while scarcely great, is still more than good enough for the small, fun car it is trying to be.
All of which is why this paragraph is so hard to write. The car is almost completely useless. The very reason it’s so much fun is the same reason it’s so terminally flawed: it has a minute and therefore extremely light battery, delivering just 28.8kWh of capacity. That is almost exactly the same size as the battery used simply to boost the engine of a Mercedes-Benz S-Class plug-in hybrid. Which means whatever the figures say, its real world range is around 100 miles. An MG4 is cheaper, and will take you twice as far. At least. It’s a shame but I can’t remember the last time I enjoyed a car so much without being able to recommend it to almost anyone. AF
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