That’ll do for now
Stepping from the Honda E to the Mini Electric is quite a shock. For two decades we’ve been lapping up the baby BMW’s fun and fizzy character, but the Brit suddenly feels old in this company.
Large dinner-plate-sized circular infotainment screens and a brace of retro toggle switches look quaint next to the digital wizardry of the Honda. You sit low in the sportiest driving position and you’re reminded that the Mini is the shortest, lowest and narrowest car on test. The package is correspondingly snug: you miss the rear doors of the other two and the cramped back seats are a joke, compared with the adult-friendly second-row accommodation in the e-208 and occasional-pub-run status of the E. None of these cars has a particularly big boot, and space is gobbled up by charging cables and paraphernalia; the Mini’s loadbay will squeeze in a little more shopping than the Honda’s, though neither can live with the Peugeot’s generous 311-litre compartment. Which is what you’d expect if you compare a supermini with two city cars.
There are few telltale signs to the outside world that this is an Electric rather than a petrol-fuelled Mini: ours does without the three-pointplug-inspired alloy wheels, and only subtle badging and the absence of an exhaust pipe give the game away. When you pull away and tickle the throttle the Mini is comfortably the fastest on test, making the most of its 31bhp power advantage over the Honda. All three cars are speedy from standstill to 30mph, but the Mini keeps on reeling in the horizon urgently, even at motorway speeds. Like the Peugeot, its top speed is capped at 93mph (the Honda will brush 100mph if you can smother your range anxiety for long enough).
That 7.3sec 0-62mph time makes this a genuine hot hatch, and this is surely the reason you’d pick the Mini – it is the most athletic car here. That familiar heft to the steering, the darty handling, the upright driving position and ease of positioning on the road – the brand traits are all present and correct. What’s less welcome is the dreadful sci-fi whooshing noise on start-up and shutdown, and there’s more artificial whirring when you pootle at low speeds, too. Yes, EVs legally have to emit low-level noises to alert pedestrians, but does it have to be this childish?
Pull out of town and once you’ve got used to the instant hit of performance the Mini can muster, you start to notice other things. Like how the steering writhes and twists in your palms if you prod the accelerator too far; torque steer is a constant companion. The ride quality is also markedly worse than in the beautifully damped Honda or resolutely
comfortable Peugeot. It pogos and crashes over those peculiarly rubbish B-roads that British councils specialise in, but things settle down on a motorway or around town. All three rivals wear identical 205/45 17-inch tyres, so it must be down to the suspension set-up. It’s a shame the Electric has lost some of the chassis poise its combustion brothers enjoy, but the Mini is the lightest car here (at 1365kg, it’s nearly two hundred kilos lighter than the Honda!) and can be flung around with reasonable abandon if you want to play hot hatch.
Where the Mini scores highest is the maturity of its electrification. Fully charged, the Mini’s range says 98 miles and after navigating our identical test route that fell to 87 miles with 84 per cent of charge remaining – a useful advantage over the Honda. Most impressive of all was the fact the journey consumed a kilowatt hour every 4.8 miles, the most miserly consumption on test. You’re left with the feeling that Mini has really tapped into the BMW group’s expertise in EVs; all those energy management learnings from the i3 and i8 have paid off in making every single amp, volt and watt matter.
The Mini’s old-worlde charm is at odds with the cutting-edge tech under the skin, and you’re left wondering if this is a brand hamstrung by the weight of its history. Like the dynamic obsession with sportiness that ruins ride quality. Or the insistence on a large circular dashboard display, despite the ineciency of a rectangular touchscreen within. The Mini’s pop-up head-up display is leapfrogged by the cutting-edge Honda’s widescreen. And isn’t it time that Mini stopped slathering Union Jack branding everywhere? I counted six flags on the seats alone, plus the large engraved dashboard motif and the rear light graphics…
The Mini couldn’t feel more different from the Honda, which is resolutely modern to its core. It feels like the world has moved on. ⊲
The Mini used a kilowatt hour every 4.8 miles, the most miserly consumption on test