A friend of ours has a Tesla. She's able to control the climate inside of it using something called "Dog Mode" which allows her to briefly leave her dog in the car. Is something like this possible with the Mini?
You could remotely precondition via the MINI app on your smartphone. As for the whoopie cushion feature, I'm afraid you will have to buy a real one.
If the heat pump if running then yes it can cool the cabin. Members are reporting about 72-76F cabin temperature for heating/cooling but I cannot confirm because it's 44F outside.
Yes, but you have no control over how cool the cabin gets in the summer or how warm the cabin gets in the winter. So your dog may need a blanket or sweater in the summer (kidding). Also, preconditioning shuts itself off after 30 minutes, so no feature-length movies on hot summer days.
I believe Tesla's dog mode also displays some sort of "dog is safe" message on the display. The SE won't, so you might have concerned animal lovers breaking your windows.
You'll need to make a laminated sign of some sort to display every time Sent from my iPhone using Inside EVs
Laminated to minimize the chances your dog will try to eat the sign after becoming get upset at being left in the car? I sometimes wonder if a really smart dog left in a car might punish their owner by waiting for someone to look in the window and then start writhing around on the seat to simulate heat-stroke.
You also have the option of turning on pre-conditioning as soon as you turn the car off, the option pops up automatically when you shut down. I'm not sure how long it goes for (I don't shop for more than 20 minutes), but it definitely keeps the car cool (72 deg), pretty sure it does the same to keep it warm to the same temp as long as you're not in -20F weather.
Ah, good to know!! I’ll test it too! Wonder if it’s because of mild climate it seems to go longer than that. Sent from my iPhone using Inside EVs
