2010 MINI E

Here in the United States, the Mini Cooper comes with a 1.6-liter gasoline engine or the turbocharged 1.6-liter engine in the Cooper S and John Cooper Works versions. In markets outside the U.S., Mini offers a version with a tiny 1.4-liter gasoline engine as well as a version with a diesel engine.

All that is about to change with the introduction of the Mini E, E for electric. It's the first all-electric production car offered to the American buying public by a major manufacturer, beating the rest to the market.

However, it isn't going to be widely available to the public for some time yet. The fast-charging all-electric Mini E is initially only going to be built in a batch of 500 cars, 250 for greater Los Angeles, and 250 for greater New York, so that the company can do a proper job of charging equipment installation and keeping up good communications between the users and the company over time. All of the Mini E cars will be built in Munich, rather than the main plant in Oxford, England.

We say "users" rather than owners because the company will not actually sell the Mini E. Each of the 500 units will be leased to customers, along with the special charging equipment it will require, for a hefty lease payment of $850 a month, about $500 a month more than a conventional Mini lease price, for a 12-month lease, not subject to renewal. Customers will be selected from interested parties living in New York and Los Angeles who have registered on the Mini website. Interested? Read on.

BMW and Mini officials have said that the all-electric Mini E will come with insurance, road service and a free replacement vehicle baked into the monthly lease price. Each car will come with a special wall-mounted 240-volt, 50-amp charging unit that can bring the 570-pound, 35 kilowatt-hour battery in the Mini E up to full charge in about two hours, depending on the type of electric service available at the house, condo or apartment. If the customer uses a charging system away from home, using a typical 110-volt outlet for charging, a full charge may take up to 24 hours, say BMW and Mini officials.

Initially, the Mini E will be offered only in the Mini sedan body style, no Clubman or convertible models. The American-made AC Propulsion system uses 5088 lithium-ion cells in the space normally filled by the rear seats. The 201 horsepower electric motor, which makes 143 foot-pounds of torque, the power control electronics, and the inverter, which turns DC current into AC and back again are under the hood.

BMW says a fully charged Mini E has a driving range of about 160 miles, well within the round-trip commuting range of many American drivers. Top speed is said to be governed to 95 mph and 0-60 acceleration is electronically limited to about eight seconds, to preserve battery power. Regenerative braking charges the battery every time the brakes are applied.

The Mini E dashboard has a battery-charge meter in place of the tachometer and a power meter in the speedometer. There is no conventional transmission in the car, because the torque provided by the electric motor is sufficient without multiplication through a transmission, but there is a conventional reverse-neutral-drive shifter on the floor. The air conditioning system is electric, and all the standard Mini chassis systems, electronic traction and stability control, are included. The 600-pound-heavier Mini E uses a modified Cooper S suspension to cope with the extra weight.
Deliveries to customers should start in the spring of 2009.
www.keelermini.com or www.mini.com