Mini goes electric
By Petah Marian on Tuesday, 21st October 2008
The iconic Mini is going electric. Set to make its debut at the Los Angeles Auto show in November. The car will be rolled out to select private and corporate customers in California, New York and New Jersey before the end of the year.
Powered by a 150kW rechargeable lithium-ion battery, it will have a range of 240km per charge. Maintaining BMW’s commitment to performance, the car accelerates to 100km/h in 8.5 seconds.
The company said this project will allow it to gain widely applicable hands on experience it will be able to factor into the engineering of mass produced vehicles.
Based on the current Mini it will be available as a two-seater, with the space ordinarily taken up by back seat passengers used by the lithium-ion battery.
Tags: BMW, electric car, Mini
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how much?
They’re not releasing them on a commercial scale yet. They’re doing it on a lease basis to their preferred customers for research so that they can get it right before selling them to the general public. Unfortunately that means I don’t know how much.
Interesting that NY should be one of the areas they introduce this. With the highway robbery from CON Ed no one will be able to afford to recharge it. On the surface, their rates are the highest in the country at $0.28-0.29/kWh. In reality its more like $0.90/kWh since their rigged meters list usage at at least 3x what you REALLY use. Our bill for August was $507 for a 1 bedroom apartment.
Also, all their spikes and severe brownouts will surely have a negative impact on the battery.
Yup, it would be interesting to know how much this will hit the streets for.
Mini Cooper goes electric, cool move for this car.