First Drive: Mini E Electric Vehicle Is Far From Ready For Primetime

By John Voelcker

John Voelcker

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Mini E electric vehicle

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Last week, BMW proudly announced that Peter Trepp, of Pacific Palisades, California, had become the first person in the United States to take delivery of an all-electric Mini E.

We pity Mr. Trepp.

Not ready for primetime

Ten days ago, we had a chance to drive a Mini E. Rarely have we been in a car less ready for primetime than this electric conversion of that fun, peppy, cheerful rollerskate,  the 2009 Mini Cooper S.

Mini E electric vehicle - battery charge gauge shows charge and range falling, percent by percent

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Mini E electric vehicle - nope, no engine in there

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Mini E electric vehicle - rear seat and load area mostly occupied by battery box

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Mini E electric vehicle - start button and speedometer

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Granted, these cars aren't for sale. They're prototype test vehicles, to gauge consumer reaction and give BMW some knowledge about how real drivers actually use electric cars day to day in the real world. BMW is issuing only 500 of them, on one-year leases.

But one of BMW's stated goals was to "preserve the Mini experience" in an EV. If the Mini were many hundreds of pounds heavier, suffered a distinct rear weight bias, rear-wheel-drive, and had the deceleration braking of a semi with the Jake Brake on ... yeah, maybe.

We've now driven prototype EVs from many makers: a 2011 Chevrolet Volt mule, the 2012 Nissan EV prototype, the 2012 Ford Focus EV prototype. In every case they were better behaved, more pleasant behind the wheel, and far more refined than the Mini E.

And that goes double for the only production electric vehicle currently sold in the US, the 2009 Tesla Roadster. We were lucky enough to road-test that car, and it's a rolling sales pitch for the virtues of electric drive. The Mini E may be its polar opposite.

Regen: So strong it throws you forward

Where to start? Perhaps with the regenerative braking, which replaces engine braking and slows the car while recharging the battery pack. In the Mini E, on lift-off, it took half a second to kick in--and then came on so strong it threw us forward in our seatbelts.

Time and again, until we ruthlessly trained ourself to feather the trottle and never to lift off abruptly, we could accelerate smoothly but lurched into every slowdown.

A further oddity was the slight delay before full acceleration. Electric vehicles are fun to drive precisely because an electric motor develops maximum torque from 0 rpm.

But the Mini E almost felt like it had turbo lag, with the characteristic EV rush of power coming only after half a second or so. Granted, it did have enough power that we could spin the inside wheel when accelerating out of a turn.

Engineers who design hybrids and electric cars will tell you it's exceptionally tough to program the software that blends power on and off and integrates the regenerative braking.

The Tesla Roadster was easy to drive on just one pedal; its regen seemed to come in at just the right time, and it took all of two minutes to learn. The Volt, the Focus EV, the Nissan EV, all of them were predictable and easy to drive, so much so that it was easy to forget we were driving an EV at all.

With the Mini E, it's impossible to forget. The entire feeling reinforces the notion that This Car Is Very Different From What It Used To Be.

We fear that the EV wizards at AC Propulsion of San Dimas, California, who developed the Mini E powertrain for BMW, are no longer at the top of their game. They were once some of the best in the business, but we were startled how clunky the Mini E really was.