That is the new Mini Electric.
And the headlines are
that it has more range, more space and less fuss than before,
but it should still be fun to drive.
But is it actually any good?
Well, we've parked it in a typical English village to find out.
Well, that's changed a bit, hasn't it?
The slightly fussy previous generation has been replaced
by something a little bit less kitchen sink-y.
It's just a lot calmer, even in this Sport grade
with the John Cooper Works little bits and bobs.
But the first thing you'll notice, is that
these headlights are now just more simple ovals,
giving it a cleaner, kind of more calm face.
And the grille is now just one chunk,
instead of having weird moustaches or a big bar across the middle.
It's got some texture to it.
So, it's got a rounded curve to this edge,
but then there's some nice straights in the bonnet.
And – big news,
the big plastic wheel arches have disappeared.
This is just body side now.
Then when you look down the car, there's a feature line that's been lowered
to make it look more compact.
And it's still got that floating roof with the blacked out A-pillar and B-pillar.
And as you move down it, you realise that it's... it's actually quite short.
Now, BMW, who own Mini,
have actually used more expensive crash structures
front and rear, particularly at the front,
so that they could squash things up together
and make the car a little bit shorter, which is good.
It's still not small, but it's smaller.
It's great.
Come towards the back, though,
and you'll notice more kind of blending, more calmness.
The previously Union Jack-tastic rear lights have disappeared,
they're now triangular.
They look a bit like Spider-Man's spider webs.
I don't know why they remind me of that, but they do.
And even with these special John Cooper Works spoilery bits
and that Venturi down there,
the back of this car is really well-formatted.
It's got these big shoulders that make it look quite wide and quite squat.
I actually think it's really good-looking.
It's kind of sober, but not boring.
Mini will have two models on offer.
The E, which comes with a 41kWh battery, 182bhp,
and 190 miles of range on the WLTP cycle.
And this SE, which gets the 54kWh battery,
215bhp and 250 miles of lab range.
£33,455 for the E,
£37,945 for the SE.
Both get 11kW AC charging capability, which is nice.
And the smaller-batteried car gets 75kW DC,
with the bigger battery getting 95.
Because neither battery is actually that massive in the big scheme of things,
both should charge from 10% to 80%
in just under half an hour, which is fine, but not stunning.
I always liked the old Mini's interior,
but this new one is on another level entirely,
and I happen to think it is absolutely brilliant.
Now, the one thing you do notice,
because it's pretty hard to miss, is this small, dinner plate-sized
OLED touchscreen, that's circular, slap bang in the middle of the dash.
There are some toggles down here, which I'll explain first.
This one is the gear selector toggle, so it's very easy
to flick between reverse and drive when you're doing a three-point turn.
Then there's this one, which is like a... it's the key
to start the car, but it looks a bit like a key.
So it's a digital representation of an analogue function.
It's weird, but it's good.
And then this one alters the experiences,
of which we'll get to in a minute.
As for this though, this Eye of Sauron, kind of massive circular thing,
it's super-fast, super-slick, and it really works.
Everything's in its sector.
So you have all the usual things, you know, there's speed in the middle,
battery percentage, your mileage, the power outputs.
It just looks really nice.
Now, where old Minis used to try and get square shapes
and fit them into circular bits and they'd just look a bit,
you know, like a brick in the wrong hole,
this has been designed to be in this circle.
So it all fits and looks really trick.
If I go to the Home button...
when you flick through things, it's so quick
and so nice to use. And everything feels really slick
and like it should be in that circular effect.
And then when you want to do stuff like change modes,
the Mini has got this real sense of fun to it.
So, they don't call them modes, obviously,
they call them "experiences" and this is like the normal mode.
If I go into Go-Kart, which is the fast mode,
just listen to it "woo hoo",
because – this makes my teeth itch, actually – but listen.
[Man] "Woo hoo!"
There's a man that says, "Woo hoo!"
Is that not weird?
OK, it's a bit weird, but then, of course, the circular thing changes.
This is a bit more racy, so it looks a bit like a chequered flag.
You've got more emphasis put on the sportier side of things.
And then as you flick through them,
there's Core, which we're in before Green,
which is basically eco mode. Now...
obviously, it needs a chime that makes you feel all floaty and green.
When you're driving, this efficiency bird, hummingbird thing,
flaps its wings to show you that it's-it's being efficient.
And then if you go too fast, it changes into a cat that runs.
Now, I don't know who needed that, but it's really distracting.
It's like you're trying to drive gently
and there's this thing sort of flapping and moving around.
I mean, it's funny, but it's not exactly great.
There's Vivid –
I'm not sure what Vivid does, to be honest.
(Faint club music)
But that's the noise it uses.
I think it's for listening to music.
And then there's Timeless, which I quite like.
Now this is 60s inspired, like the original Minis.
Again, it's a similar layout, but it just looks really cool
and everything is really crisp.
It's got that weird sense of fun that I just really enjoy,
put it in Balance and it does strange stuff,
like – it shuts the sunroof.
So if you've got a panoramic sunroof in this Sport model,
it'll actually shut it for you,
because it wants you to do something else.
I'm not really sure.
And it's got a digital assistant
called Spike, which is a cartoon Bulldog.
I would find that tremendously cheesy, except for the fact
that the voice control actually works and does understand people.
So, hey, Mini, switch off the heated steering wheel.
[Mini] Steering wheel heating off.
- You see? It actually works.
And that means you don't have to swipe through the screen when you're driving.
I mean, the rest of the car is also kind of pared back,
more simple. Even the door cards.
They've got less shapes in.
They just look a lot more relaxed.
The dashboard is made of this kind of knitted material.
There's some sort of fake strap here.
I don't know what it does, but it looks great.
Everything is just working really nicely with itself.
It's funny, it's fun.
There's also practicality in here.
It's big enough for me.
One of the things I don't like is that I wear big boots and I have big feet.
My foot keeps getting trapped just underneath the brake pedal
because I wear big shoes. That's possibly not ideal.
But then down the centre of the car,
you've got this long line of a centre console.
So there's a wireless charging pad up here.
Some nice little architectural bits here. Cup holders.
And then this thing, which looks like you should be able to take it out
and use it as a clutch bag,
but I haven't figured out how to do that yet.
And that goes all the way to the back, where there's some more cup holders.
The thing is, I think a Mini should have a bit of character
and this one walks the line brilliantly.
Now this one's a Sport, which means that it gets some sporty bits
like the Chilli Red roof and mirror caps, a steering wheel with a fabric strap,
as well as these John Cooper Works sport seats.
But it's all been specced up as a Level 3 grade,
which means it gets a host of additional bits.
And we're not talking small car stuff either.
We're talking a panoramic sunroof, electric heated seats, an interior camera,
adaptive LED headlights, a head-up display,
a Harman Kardon sound system, wireless charging and the rest.
This is not just a leather upgrade.
Sport costs three-and-a-half grand, and Level 3, four and a half.
So to get your Mini to look like this, with the special grey paint,
will walk up to over eight-and-a-half grand.
making it a £42,500 electric Mini. (Clears throat)
Mini has never been shy offering a plethora of options
to bump up those prices, and the new one is no exception.
And as for space, well, there is a tiny 200-litre boot,
which is a little bit smaller than the outgoing Mini EV,
although you can flop the seats
if you haven't got any passengers and you need the extra space.
And don't forget, there is the electric Mini Countryman,
if you need ultimate practicality from your Mini.
Now, I will admit,
I was slightly worried about how the new Mini would handle.
Pleased to say that this car is not rubbish.
It's actually really rather good.
Now, this has got a Go-Kart mode, which I am in now,
and people say that Go-Karts are really good,
because they're responsive and they handle really well, but
they're also about as comfortable as amateur dentistry.
So you don't really want that from a road car.
This Mini isn't like a Go-Kart,
but it's got that lovely, hot hatch-y vibe,
that means you can fling it around and it really does come with you.
It's got that very positive front end.
Now, this car has the 54kWh battery, the slightly bigger one.
And that means it weighs about 1,600 kilogrammes,
which is quite fat for a supermini.
But it gets 215bhp and about 243lb-ft of torque.
And that means it's nippy rather than outright fast.
It's rowdy, but not completely raucous.
So it gets from 0 to 62mph in about 6.7 seconds
and up to just over 100mph.
But my favourite thing about it is that it disguises its weight really quite nicely.
Listen to that noise.
So, I'm in Go-Kart mode, which tightens things up a little bit,
but this has that real hot hatch vibe.
It's not mega-quick,
but the steering's good.
The brakes work really nicely.
They haven't got that kind of weird EV thing going on
that some quicker EVs have, where the brake feels a little bit soft,
like it doesn't do much.
This is a positive thing.
There's a little bit of torque steer
if you get heavily on the throttle,
which is kind of understandable
because... (laughs)
because there's a lot of torque
and it seems to be available.
But you create enough cornering G to make everything in the car flop around.
The keys, I've lost already.
They slid off the seat about 20 minutes ago.
But generally, this is... it's a fun, nippy little EV
and I drove it in town earlier and it's still got that ability
to nip into a gap, or surge across a junction.
It feels quite neat and safe.
It's still got that Mini verve to it.
It feels like a car with a slightly longer wheelbase
when it's smooth, so it's very regular in its handling.
I will say,
the ride is a little bit choppy.
So, hit more than one or two bumps and you do get a bit of up and down motion.
But I kind of expect that from a Mini.
It's not something that completely shocks me.
And also, when you drive it faster, it does settle down a little bit.
So coming into a big corner here,
you can still feel the bumps. It still does pick up.
But, again, it's not super-fast.
But it's enough to get you into trouble if you're being silly.
And, actually, just really good fun.
Mini hasn't forgotten what this car's about,
and that's being positive and exciting and a bit of a laugh.
You're also sat quite low.
You've got this kind of gunslit of a windscreen, nice big, thick steering wheel.
The ergonomics are good.
Interesting one, this.
When the electric Mini was only available with a very small battery,
it felt compromised when you compared it to other similar cars like,
I don't know, a Peugeot e-208, or a Vauxhall Corsa E,
or even a Jeep Renegade, or an Alfa Romeo Junior.
But now it's got a bigger battery and more range,
it just feels like a proper option.
The outside is a little bit more mature, a little bit more sober,
but the interior is techie, it's charismatic and it's fun.
This car is still quite punchy on price when you add in a few options,
but it's fantastic to drive. And I reckon, if you want an electric supermini,
then the actual Mini is now the one to have.