2020 Mini Cooper Electric Pros and Cons Review: A Day Late and Range Short

The 2020 Mini Cooper Electric is a time machine in a lot of ways. Open the driver-side door, slip into the Chesterfield Grey leather buckets, and finger the bright yellow toggle switch at the base of the center stack, and you, like me, might immediately be transferred back to our 2012 Car of the Year test, the first year an electric car competed in our 72-year-old program.

Two early electric cars competed for the Golden Calipers that year—the Mitsubishi i-MiEV and the Nissan Leaf. The former was little more than a highway-legal electrified golf cart with 62 miles of range and an EPA rating of 112 mpg-e combined. The latter was a Car of the Year finalist but didn't win because despite its 99 mpg-e EPA score, we were worried about its paltry 73 miles of range.

We'd have likely been very impressed with the Mini Cooper Electric back then. Built on BMW's UKL platform, which underpins all Minis and the BMW X1, X2, and 2 Series Gran Coupe, the electric Mini ditches the regular Cooper's 189-hp 2.0-liter turbo-four in favor of an electric motor making a modest 181 hp and 199 lb-ft of torque. In back, the gas tank gets replaced by a 33-kWh battery. Were it powered by internal combustion, that would be just shy of the equivalent of 1 gallon of gas. The EPA rates the Mini Cooper Electric at 108 mpg-e and 110 miles of range.

That would've blown us away eight years ago. But in these United States in 2020, it's a nonstarter.

"A range of 110 miles is inexcusable," MotorTrend en Español managing editor Miguel Cortina said. "Maybe it works if you're in Madrid or Paris where the streets are tight, parking is a problem, and distances are short, but then you look at the rest of the EV market. The Hyundai Kona Electric or Chevrolet Bolt makes a stronger case with over 250 miles of range."

Even if we shrink the Mini Electric's competitive set with some mental gymnastics to other low-range EVs like the related BMW i3, Hyundai Ioniq Electric, and Nissan Leaf, the Mini's range still falls short by 39 miles to the small-battery Leaf and 60 miles to the Ioniq. Range isn't everything when it comes to most modern electric vehicles, but that's because the table stakes for a decent EV is more like 250 miles.

"OK, we get it—the Mini can't make the drive from one tip of Long Island to the other, move along," you're saying. Fine. The Mini does make up a little ground against the criteria in value. At just over $30,000 to start (before any EV rebates or incentives), the Mini undercuts a base model Nissan Leaf by a couple grand.

The electric Mini is even somewhat fun to drive, with quick, light, city-friendly steering and good power delivery until the motor inevitably overheats and cuts power—as happened for quite a few judges. With the extra weight of a battery pack necessitating some suspension changes, the Mini's ride is just on the wrong side of flinty on the pockmarked streets of our evaluation loop. Its eco-friendly tires grip well but do transmit a fair bit of noise into the cabin.

Design is also a strong suit for the Mini. Its sheetmetal hasn't changed much since the third-generation Mini Hardtop made its debut in 2013, but the Cooper Electric's four-spoke wheels and bright yellow accents inject a dose of personality into a segment largely lacking in it. Unfortunately for all of us, it just doesn't bring much more than that to the table.