BMW Has Made An All-Electric Classic Mini, And We're In Love
Remember Honda’s Urban EV concept? It blended ultra-cool retro styling with a city-friendly all-electric powertrain to make the kind of EV that even petrolheads can get on board with.
Now, BMW has cooked up something similar via its Mini brand. Well, sort of. The car you see here may look like one of the late, Rover-built Minis, but it’s had the dinky stock petrol engine whipped out and replaced with a bunch of batteries and a single electric motor.
There isn’t a whole lot of technical detail in the press release, but Topgear.com reports that it’s packing 30 lithium-ion batteries, weighs about 770kg, and has a range of 65 miles. Top speed is a modest 75mph.
The point of all this? With this cute little EV, Mini apparently “sends out a clear signal demonstrating its commitment to retaining the brand’s unmistakable character whilst embracing innovative zero local emission technology.” That’s lovely and all, but can’t help but be distracted wondering how awesome it’d be if Mini put this New York Auto Show one-off into a limited production. After all, if Land Rover can restore, upgrade and sell a bunch of Defenders with V8s, perhaps Mini can breathe new life into a few crusty old Minis…
Growing up on a diet of World Rally Championship highlights and lengthy Gran Turismo 2 sessions, a life in cars was as good as inevitable for Matt.
Comments
I was wondering. The mini is all about its weight right? What about a small rotary swap?
Hold up
KILL IT! KILL IT WITH FIRE!
Why?
Still bigger than an i3.
This as a proper city car: sign me in!!! Totaly needs to go into production
OMG - we want to drive this so bad
Lets hope their E36 M3 Electric Concept will come out soon
It’s cool, but the range is horrific… That’s still really cool however given a chance I’d take one with a petrol engine
Well it does only have 30 batterys.
So the charge should be quick.
And after all it is a city car
I was so excited when i first saw this.
And then i found out it was electric…
Please, dear god, let it not have 700hp (as it would destroy the character)