Acclimating to the new Bells and whistles

By gear shift do you mean that you're coming from a manual?

Really the only thing to get used to is the regen and for the first drives (if necessary) you can turn that to low. The complete silence and lack of vibrations is a bit weird at first but after a couple of weeks ICE cars will just seem broken!

My first drive in any EV was the 170mi home from the MINI dealer. Because I was coming from an older manual car where throttle modulation is important to avoid jerking and lurching, it took me about 10 seconds to get used to the regen and one pedal driving.

Someone coming from an automatic would probably have a harder time since they're used to fully letting off the throttle and coasting. For the first couple of drives, my wife (who's definition of a sporty car is one that can fit more sports stuff in it lol) would forget and quickly release the throttle to brake. The sudden strong regen can be a bit startling if you're not expecting it!

 

I haven't driven an SE, but it took me all of about 10 seconds to get used to one-pedal driving in a Bolt. (It helped to have read that you moved the selector to 'L' for max Regen.)

TL,DR: it's a car, just drive it. Scratch that... it's a Mini, drive it like you stole it.

 

Aside from adjusting to the BMW control stick, there's no gear shifting. There's "go forward" and "go backward". I guess there's also neutral, but I've never used it in the SE. All of the driving in the SE comes from the use of the pedal.

 

In a manual-transmission car it feels natural to shift when the engine begins to run out of steam as it hits its rev-limit. The SE doesn't run out of steam in its only gear, it just keeps accelerating until it hits its MINI-imposed limit of 93 mph. After driving stick shifts all my life, our MINI's (and our Clarity's) power flow makes manual transmissions seem archaic to me now. Automatic, CVT, and DCT transmissions now seem archaic to me, too.

 

Agree with all the comments above. If you're accustomed to driving a manual transmission, driving the SE feels like you're always in second gear, but you never have to worry about hitting redline or stalling out.

 

I wouldn't worry, it's really very intuitive. I'd suggest setting regen to low for the first couple of minutes just to get a feel and switch back to full regen when you're comfortable.

For charging, you can just plug it in like a phone. All of the other settings are really optional to improve your experience or reduce cost.

The only setting to change sooner than later would be setting the charging current to maximum but that's not hard at all. If your house electrical circuit is overloaded from other things it will trip the breaker and protect itself and you can just switch back to reduced current.

While it's not necessary, you can eventually get the departure time and low rate charging set up but that's not hard either and can even be done from your phone.