Mini Cooper SE vs Ioniq 5 SE AWD

Thanks. It was mostly a rhetorical question, but I was also too lazy to look up when the i3 was launched.

Then of course there was the original MINI electric...

Anyway, the point (which is undoubtedly obvious to most here) is that BMW has plenty of experience with electric vehicles - in fact, if you count hybrids I believe that they have sold more world-wide than anyone else.

 

I have had 2 Miata’s, an NB and an ND Club model. While I haven’t driven the Electric Mini, I have driven the gas ones. They were a huge disappointment after the Miata’s. I currently own a 2022 Ioniq 5 Limited edition. It’s smooth and quiet both in town and on the Freeway. The car nearly drives itself if you use Hyundai’s drivers assistance. You can sit it a traffic jam with your feet on the
floor and your hand barely touching the wheel and it will do it all for you. If you want to drag cars at the stop light, it does 0-60 in under 5 seconds as tested by major car magazines. I have personally fast charged the car from 10% to 80% in 19 minutes. Also it comes with 2 years of 30 minute DC fast charging sessions at Electrify America, and I have never had to go more than 29 minutes to fill it up. As to Hyundai’s Electric experience, the have been building all EV cars since 2010.


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Copy cats are finally making headways! On the baked R&D from Tesla! EVs sucked big time until Tesla showed them the REAL potential.. and now everyone seems to be on a bandwagon! All EVs before Tesla were lethargic and sucked big time!

Korean and Chinese Automakers know how to pull the right strings though - gotta give them that! Soon mini-EV is being swallowed in chinese market... sad

 

Swallowed in the Chinese market? What does that mean? Teslas are made in China too.

 

A good number of the MINI SE owners on here came from Miatas (including me) for good reason. There are very few cars that won't be at least a little bit of a disappointment when comparing fun/handling to a Miata but the MINI SE is as close as you can currently get with an EV in the US (besides a DIY conversion).

My only real disappointment is that it's FWD. It does like to understeer but so did my Miata with the factory alignment.

As far as the drivers assistance goes, I still have zero faith in those systems (AAA agrees). They're good enough that people lose focus (like you mentioned) but not enough to rely on which seems to me like it would cause more harm than good...

The lane centering on my wife's Outback is about as good as a drunk driver and the auto braking has almost gotten me rear ended a number of times including slamming on the brakes for a plastic bag blowing in the wind. The lack of these automatic braking/steering systems on the MINI was a huge plus for me.

 

How well does the Ioniq bound around roundabouts?

 

It corners flat and is a hoot to drive if you’re into tossing a two-ton family wagon into corners, but I still don’t get this discussion. Nobody would go on an Abarth forum and ask to compare it to a Pacifica. If the SE isn’t the car for you, it isn’t the car for you.

ETA: this post isn’t a dig at the OP @Joe c but the non-SE buyers who only have negative things to say about a car that isn’t for them. The OP gave his parameters, which are similar to mine, and IMO the SE suits them just fine. For a LOT less money. And with a much shorter delivery time.

 

Why? And why?

 

Although I'm sure things are different today, the idea of a build quality argument between Korean and British car manufacturers strikes this middle-aged guy as pretty funny.

 

Lol during the mid-80s in college my buddy and I had a friendly competition to see which car left more oil on our driveways, his 74 Spitfire or my 76 Alfetta GT. The umpire was a third member of our gang, who drove an infallible Mk I Rabbit GTI.

 

Fine, if you feel the need to drift, but the Ioniq 5 N.


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I have done over 40,000 of my 48,000 miles road tripping my Ioniq 5. Of that over 99% of freeway driving was with the rock solid highways driver assist, which drives better than I do. Over those miles there have been zero cases of phantom braking or near misses, from the drivers assist features. There may have been a few near misses from me.



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I love the styling of the Ioniq 5, but it's too big for my tastes.

More importantly, I could buy a couple SEs for the price of the 5N.

 

A steep price to get an Ioniq 5 with a rear wiper, which, of course, all SEs have.

 

Carsten made the switch over from the MINI SE to a RWD Model 3 due to his Oregon location (3+ hours from Portland). On other Tesla sites he does say he experiences phantom braking on a weekly basis along with adaptive cruise control disengaging on a 2 lane highway.

 

Different tastes, I guess. I personally find the Ioniq 5 looks unfinished, particularly the backend. But yes, it is a big vehicle. The Kona is a more reasonable size for an SUV, although it looks like the 2024 model might be bigger. I have a friend who just bought an Ioniq 5, and I'm totally in support of anyone getting any kind of EV they like.