Coming Soon: New Mini Cooper Electric - specs, price and release info

Well, here it is, the all-new Mini Cooper. Very different but somehow exactly the same. It’s been this way since BMW took over the brand in 2001. The main thing to know is that the Mini Cooper is being launched as an electric car. There’ll be petrol versions eventually – 2024, probably – but both this and the all-new Mini Countryman start as EVs. Thankfully, the battery has been improved massively as compared to the outgoing Mini Electric – as has everything else. It’s a lot more minimalist now, but don’t worry, it’s still fun; Mini is still talking about go-karts. Obviously. It does some pretty amazing things with its fancy circular OLED touchscreen and its interior lights, too.
• Three trim levels: Classic, Exclusive and Sport. Three-door only, for now • Two battery options, good for either 190- or 250 miles of range • Two power options: 184 horsepower or 218 horsepower • Circular central touchscreen is a cutting-edge OLED display • On the road from Spring 2024 • Priced from £30,000 before options… and there’ll be many

Design and models available

Mini says it’s simplified the design approach for this, the fifth-generation Mini Cooper. It looks familiar because the basics are near enough as they were before – short bonnet, long wheelbase, short overhangs – but the plastic wheel arches are gone, as is most of the chrome. The circular headlamps are as per – albeit they now feature customisable horizontal light strips – while the rear gains a sense of width with a thin black panel opening out into Union Jack-inspired LEDs. Predictably, the higher up the trim hierarchy you go – Classic, Exclusive and Sport – the more you can customise the exterior. Usual stuff: more gloss black, contrasting roof colours. You know the drill by now.

Interior and technology

The new Mini is a revelation inside. The dashboard is pared back to near enough Tesla simplicity, dominated by a nine-inch circular OLED touchscreen – a world first for a production car, we’re told. It’s full of tricks too, split into upper and lower regions where the former shows speed and battery charge, and the latter the climate control and navigation controls. It’s fully customisable though, featuring various configurable shortcut widgets and voice activation. You can play games on it too – thanks again, Tesla – by using an app that turns your phone into a controller. But its coolest trick, arguably, is housed on the back of the screen. A projector throws light onto the dashboard – covered in polyester, recycled of course – with various patterns depending on which of seven driving modes the car’s in. And yes, one of them is called ‘Go-Kart’. There’s a sound augmentation system too, designed to make the outside world think you're driving a petrol car, just like the new Abarth 500e.

Batteries and range

At first the Mini Cooper comes with two power and battery options, nice and simple. The Cooper Electric E has a 184hp engine and a 40.7kWh battery, good for a 190-mile range, officially. The SE model has more power and a bigger battery: 218 horsepower and 54.2kWh, bumping the range to 250 miles and knocking the 0-62mph time down from 7.3 Seconds in the E to 6.7. Unlike the outgoing Mini Electric, which was basically a petrol Mini with EV bits poured into it, this one sits on a brand-new EV-only platform, which has not only allowed for a bigger battery, but much improved charging technology. Whereas before the Mini Electric’s battery would charge at a maximum 49kW rate, today it’ll hit 75kW and has 11kW on-board charging, which can reduce the time it takes to juice up using an AC home or office charger.

Price and release

The Mini Cooper Electric E starts at a nice neat £30,000, making it a couple of grand more than where the Fiat 500e begins. The Electric SE comes in at £34,500. It appears that the price uplift from E to SE is largely paying for the bigger battery and more powerful motor, because both versions have the same three trim options: Classic, Exclusive and Sport. What those entail isn’t confirmed yet, although we do know that they’ll have distinctly upholstered interiors. There’ll be options galore, of course, including contrasting roof colours and bonnet stripes, and even the facility to park the thing into especially tight spaces (and back out again) from the outside using a smartphone.

What other cars from Mini are due?

The Mini Cooper Electric was announced alongside a brand-new Mini Countryman, also launched as an electric-only vehicle. The cabin utilises a lot of the same technology and design too, most notably the central touchscreen, and it is of course a little bigger in every direction. Beyond that, Mini will launch petrol versions of the Cooper.

What other upcoming cars will this compete with?

The MINIs most obvious rivals come from Fiat, namely the 500e and its newer Abarth counterpart. But with this sort of price and personality, the Ora Funky Cat is an existing competitor, as is the Cupra Born - a car we’ve spent quite a lot of time with.The recently released Smart #1 is a consideration, and an all-electric revival of the Renault 5 is coming in 2024 too. That’ll definitely turn heads away from the Mini.