MINI E Pure Electric Car Preserves the Fun
Like a rock from a slingshot, the MINI E electric car shoots up the onramp and into the traffic flow. Press the accelerator (don’t call it the gas) and the 150 KW motor delivers its 204 horsepower in a burst.
You’ll hardly need the brakes. The regenerative braking system kicks in like the flaps on a landing 727. It’s like someone dropped the anchor or popped the ‘chutes. It takes some getting used to. Just lift your right foot as you approach a red light and cruise to a stop.
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The MINI E is an experiment. 500 units, split between California and New York/New Jersey, wear their number proudly on their flanks (I drove number 251). All wear Metallic Dark Silver with a Pure Silver top. Electric plug logos and body trim glow in Interchange Yellow.
Inside, the rear seats are sacrificed to accommodate the lithium-ion battery pack, leaving room for one small suitcase. The E gains 600 pounds over a standard Cooper Coupe, but still handles tautly and sportily, thanks to carefully planned suspension changes.
Look closely at the gauges. A percent-of-charge-remaining gauge replaces the tach behind the steering wheel. A small LED numeral tells miles-remaining instead of distance-to-empty. In the massive central speedometer area, the graphical fuel gauge now serves as a consumption meter. You can monitor your behavior to extend your driving range.
To charge your MINI E, insert the heavy, knurled plug into a jack behind the former gas filler door and the other end of the cord into any outlet. My tester sipped from a Coulomb Technologies Level 2 bollard.
“At 110 volts, it takes 20 hours to charge an empty battery,” says Mike DiNucci, Coulomb’s V.P, Strategic Accounts. “At 220 the time drops to 5 hours.” Range is about 100 miles—plenty for most trips.
Sorry—you can’t buy one yet. Carefully selected one-year leases at $850 a month include all service and maintenance. At the end of this grand experiment, MINI’s techs will call in their charges and see how well they fared. Then maybe we’ll get our chance.
It’s all the fun but none of the CO2.
The quote from Miki DiNucci:
“At 110 volts, it takes 20 hours to charge an empty battery …At 220 the time drops to 5 hours.”
If anybody noticed that doubling the voltage cuts the time not in half but to a quarter and wonders if that is possible and why, it is because of Ohm’s Law. The power delivered through a circuit is P = IV where I is current and V is voltage. Ohm’s Law says that for an ideal resistor, the voltage and current are related via V = IR. Substituting I = V/R in the power equation shows us that P = V^2/R so the power is not proportional to the voltage but to its square. And that is why doubling the voltage gets the battery topped up in one quarter of the time. (Assuming the battery acts like an ideal resistor, which I guess is pretty close to the truth).
That’s got quite a lot of power for an electric car.
Thanks for sharing… I can’t wait to get a electric car myself…
We’re just waiting for a few more to get on the market and it will be time to replace our Honda… I’m hoping that the volt will be a good choice or the prius… the rebates are definitely a great step in putting more people in these cars.
If just saw this today as well (hybrid government rebate - http://www.hybridmile.com/news/government-rebate-hybrid/) I hope that these get extended into 2010 and really they should be available till every single gas car is off the road.
I want a Mini, but will wait until an electric version is available. I hope they don’t mess with the design when the actual Mini E is available for purchase. Just keep the standard Mini/Clubman design and put the battery where the gas tank would be.
There should also be a price drop, because of the 4 year maintenance that BMW covers. With the electric car there are so many parts that won’t need to be maintained. It’s like a laptop on wheels.