2020 Mini Cooper SE First Drive: All-Electric Comes to Mini

Auto123 headed to Florida to climb into the 2020 Mini Cooper SE all-electric car for a first drive

Miami, FL - After what’s essentially been a 12-year gestation period, a fully-electrified Mini is ready for the open market. Yes, that’s right: in 2007, there was a Mini Electric development vehicle that saw very limited use by folks who applied to give it a try; they were given short-term leases –one or two years – and Mini used the experience gained to develop full-on production vehicles running on electric power.

Fast-forward to 2017, and the first fruits of that plan came to bear in the form of the Mini Countryman E plug-in hybrid (PHEV). It’s done well to the point where 18% of all Countrymans sold worldwide are of the E variety. It could be argued, though, that the Countryman E was a bit of a step backward in that it still required the use of a gas engine, while the “original” electrified Mini was a full-on EV. 

Which brings us to today, and the model we headed south to Florida to test drive: the 2020 Mini Cooper SE, a fully-electrified Mini that will be available to all worldwide at Mini dealers, right alongside more traditional Minis such as the Cooper S and Clubman. Available as a three-door and a three-door only, it takes all the lessons learned from the Mini Electric, the Countryman E and even the BMW i3, which donated a flipped-around version of its EV battery and motor (it runs as a rear-wheel-drive car, while the Cooper SE is a front-wheel drive car). 

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