To take the plunge or not without a demo

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interestedinEV

Well-Known Member
As people in this forum may know, my wife has not driven anything but a Mini since 2004. Last Mini hardtop is about 2 year old but my son who is moving to a different city wants it (he is in the market for a used car and he knows Moms car is safe and does not want to take his beat up car that lasted him through college). The idea was we would sell him her car and buy a Mini Electric. With COVID-19, we have not had a chance to test drive this vehicle or make an order and even if we did order today, we may not get one for several months. My son is moving in a few weeks.

So choices are go ahead and order the SE and wait for it to come (she can use my car till then I can use my son's old student car as I do not drive much) or look for another electric option. I live in the Phoenix area if that helps. Suggestions, comments especially experts like @insightman and others?
 
interestedinEV said:
As people in this forum may know, my wife has not driven anything but a Mini since 2004. Last Mini hardtop is about 2 year old but my son who is moving to a different city wants it (he is in the market for a used car and he knows Moms car is safe and does not want to take his beat up car that lasted him through college). The idea was we would sell him her car and buy a Mini Electric. With COVID-19, we have not had a chance to test drive this vehicle or make an order and even if we did order today, we may not get one for several months. My son is moving in a few weeks.

So choices are go ahead and order the SE and wait for it to come (she can use my car till then I can use my son's old student car as I do not drive much) or look for another electric option. I live in the Phoenix area if that helps. Suggestions, comments especially experts like @insightman and others?
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I am honored that you imagine I'm an expert, but I'm just a lurker here who ordered a MINI Electric last October. My MINI left the factory almost 3 weeks ago, but for reasons no one can/will tell me, it remains sitting in a UK port, pining for a boat ride west.

Here are my expert justifications for you to order a MINI Electric:
  1. You know why MINI Coopers are desirable because you own one
  2. You have rationalized your range requirements and evaluated your potential charging options
  3. You won't be penalized for canceling your order if you decide the MINI Cooper SE won't work for you
  4. If you choose to bail after driving one, almost any other car you pick will be much more readily available
 
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interestedinEV said:
There is another dealer who has a demo model and we will take a ride on Monday to determine if my wife likes it. Will keep you posted
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You'd never guess from all my enthusiasm for the MINI Electric that I have never driven or ridden in a BMW MINI, much less test-driven an SE. The last MINI I was "in" was my 1968 Morris Mini Moke, which I sold 25 years ago. It was 50% more alliterative than the Austin Mini Moke.

upload_2020-7-17_20-36-15.webp

Note that in ancient times, the appellation was the all lowercase "mini" vs BMW's all uppercase "MINI."
 
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insightman said:
You'd never guess from all my enthusiasm for the MINI Electric that I have never driven or ridden in a BMW MINI, much less test-driven an SE. The last MINI I was "in" was my 1968 Morris Mini Moke, which I sold 25 years ago. It was 50% more alliterative than the Austin Mini Moke.
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About 15 years back my wife wanted the new Volkswagen Beetle. She wanted a small car with a distinct shape. She did not like it after the test drive. I suggested the Mini. She drove it and decided that was the car. At the time the Mini had to be ordered (just like the Mini SE) and we had to wait for it to be manufactured. You would get a email when it was on the production line and you could watch. Off course we paid sticker price. 5 Minis later she still wants one. My nephew calls it "Aunts toy car". When ever my kids or my nieces/nephews visit us they want to borrow the Mini and zip around. And it is great for tight parking spaces. MINI SE may have a different feel but hopefully not too different.
 
YurkshireLad said:
Personally I would never buy a car without several test drives.
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You exhibit more common sense than I do. I ordered my first Honda Insight a year before it went on sale (I didn't need a test drive before buying my 2nd gen-1 Insight). I ordered my Clarity Plug-In Hybrid 6 months before it went on sale. I ordered my lost-in-shipment MINI Cooper SE last October and it's a good thing I didn't wait for a test-drive before ordering because then it probably wouldn't get here until 2022! At this rate, it may not get here before 2021.
 
insightman said:
You exhibit more common sense than I do. I ordered my first Honda Insight a year before it went on sale (I didn't need a test drive before buying my 2nd gen-1 Insight). I ordered my Clarity Plug-In Hybrid 6 months before it went on sale. I ordered my lost-in-shipment MINI Cooper SE last October and it's a good thing I didn't wait for a test-drive before ordering because then it probably wouldn't get here until 2022! At this rate, it may not get here before 2021.
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I think you should file a complaint with MINI/BMW corporate. Let them know how botched the whole process is..
 
idrw said:
I think you should file a complaint with MINI/BMW corporate. Let them know how botched the whole process is..
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I doubt anything I could say would be news to them. With the downturn in sales, I'm sure the company wants my money as soon as they can get it, but there must be forces beyond their control that have prevented the car they made for me a month ago from finding its way across the Atlantic. The policeman who will be awarding me with my first speeding ticket in 47 years will have to wait a little longer.

But get this for irony: I wrote many, many letters to BMW/MINI in 3 countries, begging them to let me pay $1500 to have the scoopless base MINI hood on my SE, but they were ignored. So I have been working with a local body shop to have them do the swap for me. Now that my car has been sitting in a port parking lot for more than a month, the body shop says they may have to charge me extra to mask and spray the slightly faded front fenders to blend with the newly painted hood. How much fading could have taken place in rainy Britain? I guess the longer it sits there, the greater chance of fading. My wife was already unhappy that the cure for my hood-scoop phobia was going to be so expensive and now it may cost even more than $1500.
 
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OK, we had the test drive. It handles like a Mini. Except for the braking, due to regenerative braking, which takes getting used to. There is a switch to reduce the amount of re-generation and that makes it feel a little more "normal", but not completely. This will reduce the range of the car, which is counter productive, so one just needs to get used to that. Acceleration is very good like a MINI. Honesty, other than the quietness and the braking, we could have been in my wife's MINI. The MINI engineers seem to have taken care to keep the feel of the MINI. If anything it is more stable due to the lower center of gravity. The ride was comfortable and the back seat is still really for kids. Moving the car into park or drive is a little different (a button to press) but not a big deal. The control panel (central screen) is OK, but not anything that stood out and was not impressive, especially having seen a Tesla. That said, we were driving the Iconic model, which has the bigger screen. They did not have Signature or the Signature plus models. The salesperson said that the screen on the Signature and Signature plus was about the same as my Wife's current MINI, which is quite small. It is has built in navigation but that screen will be just a little than my GARMIN GPS.

The salesperson claims that he has a customer in Payson (Is it in the White Mountains) and he gets about 115 miles. Now Payson is a lot colder than Phoenix, it is at a higher altitude. I tried ask him for range in the Phoenix heat (we have months of 100 degrees + temperature, if any one did not know :)). He said that he had not heard of any issues or problems with the weather. He said that they had sold a few cars, but could not sell more due to the lack of supplies and people were now in the wait and see mode. But that is what I expect a typical sales persons answers. These cars come with heated seats standard, but I do not anticipate of ever having to use it. I am more interested in the range with A/C on all the time in summer and for that I did not really get an answer. I guess there is not enough cars on the road for a big enough sample. The rest of his answers were standard.

Overall, It was better than what I expected. The limitations are known. So I am positive and my wife is interested. The dealer told us that it would be sold at list (MSRP) price but then said he could throw in a small discount as we were loyal customers (we bought the first two Minis from that dealer)

My biggest concern is how it will handle the Phoenix heat. Anyone with feedback? I know it has a liquid cooled engine, which should help. I have been pushing from a Nissan leaf for that very reason.

Also has any got a better price than the Base MSRP?
 
interestedinEV said:
My biggest concern is how it will handle the Phoenix heat.
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Heat is the enemy of EV batteries. That's why the liquid-cooled battery setup in the MINI Cooper SE is so much better than the air-cooled batteries in a Nissan Leaf or a VW e-Golf.

Look at it this way: If your battery fails sooner than a northern MINI's battery, you're more likely to be within the warranty period. My gen-1 Insight's battery failed after 8 years, 2 months. The warranty was 8 years. Fortunately, Honda was nice and made me pay for only the labor to replace it.

I'm sad that all MINI's have heated side mirrors that are heated all the time. Same with the heated windshield-washer fluid. It doesn't make a big difference in the gas-powered MINIs, but heating things that don't need heating reduces range in the MINI Electric. I don't know how much they reduce range, but they certainly don't extend it.
 
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The dealer clarified, they have sold all of one car and that is used in Payson, in the mountains. Heat is the not issue there, but it can get cold where the seat heaters and the heated side mirrors can be useful. So 114 mile claim may not translate into the one in Phoenix.

The sales person claims "One of the MINI trainers mentioned that extreme cold weather was more detrimental to range than extreme heat." Is this a valid statement?
 
interestedinEV said:
The dealer clarified, they have sold all of one car and that is used in Payson, in the mountains. Heat is the not issue there, but it can get cold where the seat heaters and the heated side mirrors can be useful. So 114 mile claim may not translate into the one in Phoenix.

The sales person claims "One of the MINI trainers mentioned that extreme cold weather was more detrimental to range than extreme heat." Is this a valid statement?
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Our Clarity PHEV gets 47-55 miles of EV range in the summer, but only 35 miles or so in the winter. MINI claims the design of the CATL battery in the MINI Cooper SE is less prone to cold-weather range-reduction than the BMW i3 with its Samsung slab-style battery.

From a purely physical point of view, a slab of battery underneath a car would seem to be more difficult to keep warm than a battery that shares the interior space of the car with the humans, as does the MINI's. I don't know if the CATL battery has some kind of cold-weather coping technology that makes it better than a Samsung battery.

Rather than reducing range, I believe hot weather threatens the longevity of a battery. Like most auto manufacturers, MINI likely took the SE to Death Valley to test its cooling system. They don't want to spend money replacing 32.6 kWh batteries under warranty.
 
My wife and I have happily owned a BMW i3 with range extender for more than 2 years. We bought the car with my wife in mind, but it's now largely driven by our teenage daughter. The i3 has totally sold us on the benefits of an electric car for in town usage. Consequently, in February we ordered an electric Mini, not least because it's based on the i3. Earlier this week I was fortunate enough to drive an electric Mini courtesy of the selling dealer. I came away extremely impressed—it's much more fun to drive than our i3—and look forward to taking delivery of ours, which I'm told should arrive sometime in the fall. My only disappointment is that the Mini's not more radical. Mind you, radical hasn't done the i3 any favors in the marketplace, which is probably why BMW has taken the conventional route with the Mini.
 
Darren Humphreys said:
My only disappointment is that the Mini's not more radical. Mind you, radical hasn't done the i3 any favors in the marketplace, which is probably why BMW has taken the conventional route with the Mini.
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Radical in trying to change the shape and the profile is a No No (at least to my wife and the other Mini die hards that I know). Now a days every car looks like the car from the competitor. There are only few cars which are very distinct, the Volkswagen Beetle, the MINI Cooper, Jeep, the Corvette (especially from the rear). You can recognize these cars from a distance. MINI engineers were also constrained by the handling, there is a distinct handling to the MINI. So they are limited in where they could be radical. So could they have been radical in the interior, may be extended the length a littler bit so that you had more batteries and more range? Definitely.

If it did not look or handle like a MINI, my wife would have said an absolute No. It is I am who am hesitating due to the range.
 
My exact sentiments. I used to be a VW driver, but when they went to a generic sedan style, and now SUV, they lost the "magic" in my mind (VW even stopped making the Beetle in 2019). Been driving MINIs ever since.

As much as I wanted an EV, Tesla never appealed to me from a style standpoint (let alone cost). Technically they are great cars, but style-wise do nothing for me. Other options, like Nissan Leaf and the BMW i3, just look too goofy to me. Europe has quite a few attractive EVs, but they won't come to the US market.

MINI may not be for everyone, but for me it's a perfect mix of handling and character. And the SE range may seem a bit on the low side, but unlike ICE vehicles you can "top it off" every day at home with no effort.
 
Puppethead said:
My exact sentiments. I used to be a VW driver, but when they went to a generic sedan style, and now SUV, they lost the "magic" in my mind (VW even stopped making the Beetle in 2019). Been driving MINIs ever since.
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As I mentioned earlier, my wife was set on the Beetle, but did not like it. She has been a die hard MINI owner for years. My wife is turned off the Tesla too, partially due to the style and partially due to snob effect, people showing off their Tesla to show they are greener than the rest or they can afford one, others cannot. MINI is not for everyone, range is definitely a turn off for many people.
 
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