Ahead of the official premiere, more photos and the first technical data of the new Mini Cooper have appeared on the internet. This is the model that is being produced in cooperation with the Chinese company Great Wall.
The four pictures show a blue Mini with a white painted roof, white exterior mirror caps and also a white border around the ‘radiator grille’. The yellow-green ‘S’ of the sportier ‘Cooper S’ models can also be clearly seen there. Since the electric minis will in future be built by Great Wall in China and thus no longer have anything to do with the familiar European plants in England and the Netherlands in terms of production technology, the shade of blue is also new, reportedly to be called “Indigo Sunset Blue”. The rear view is also striking, because the electric Mini goes its own way there, particularly in the design of the tail lights. The front and side lines, however, are clearly recognisable as a Mini.
Bimmertoday also mentions further data on the electric drive, but these have not yet been confirmed – no source is given. The basic model is to be launched on the market as the Mini Cooper E and is to be relatively comparable with the current electric Mini in terms of technical data: The new model is to produce 133 kW (original specification in the article: 181 hp) and, with a 40 kWh battery, will have a WLTP range of 320 kilometres. The Mini Cooper S E is supposed to rank above it – with 158 kW of power, a 54 kWh battery and a range of 386 kilometres according to WLTP.
There are no new details in the article on the battery cells used or the charging power. Looking at Great Wall’s own retro-look small electric car, the Ora Funky Cat, it is quite possible that two different cell chemistries are used. In the Funky Cat, the 48 kWh battery (45.5 kWh net) uses LFP cells, while the large battery with 63.1 kWh gross and 59.3 kWh net is a “ternary” lithium battery – i.e. with NCM or NCA cell chemistry.
If the Mini uses the battery technology (possibly with a different number of modules due to the slightly different information on the energy content), no outstanding performance data can be expected at the charging station. On the AC side, a three-phase 11 kW charger is installed, but a maximum of 67 kW is possible at the fast charging station in the Funky Cat – with the large battery, a charging process from 15 to 80 per cent takes 48 minutes there.
According to earlier information, the electric Mini Cooper is to be launched on the market in May 2024. Before that, production of the electric Mini Countryman is to start in Leipzig, which would mean that the BMW brand would launch two purely electric models in 2024. The market launch of the all-electric Aceman is planned for January 2025.
Keyword: New images and details leaked about the upcoming electric Mini