Mini Cooper SE Review: Price, Specs, Availability

Despite its familiar looks, the caller Mini Cooper has conscionable undergone its biggest update this century. The ionic headlights, achromatic roof, and city-friendly dimensions remain, arsenic they person passim BMW’s 2 decades astatine the helm of the Mini brand. But nether that acquainted skin, it’s all-new.

For starters, the 2024 Mini Cooper sits connected a caller electrical platform. It has much scope and straight-line show than its predecessor, positive an all-new interior that boasts much tech and much space, contempt the exterior being somewhat shorter (but a small wider) than before.

That caller level comes from a concern betwixt BMW and Great Wall Motor, the Chinese steadfast whose catalog of EV brands includes Ora, makers of the unremarkable and unrelated 03 (née Funky Cat). The caller electrical Cooper is made successful China, with other accumulation to commence successful Oxford, England, successful 2026. Only past mightiness the car caput to North America, since it volition nary longer autumn unfortunate to import tariffs imposed connected Chinese-built EVs.

In summation to a caller platform, there’s caller nomenclature to get your caput around: All versions of the smallest Mini are present called “Cooper.” This includes the electrical Cooper E and higher-performance Cooper SE, some reviewed here, but besides the internal-combustion Cooper C and Cooper S, which are disposable successful a three- oregon five-door configuration.

Although besides “new,” those ICE versions beryllium atop the aged platform, and are much heavy facelifted than genuinely all-new. If the Cooper is excessively tiny for you, there’s the arsenic caller (and electric-only) Mini Aceman, oregon if you request adjacent much abstraction there’s the range-topping Mini Countryman, which is offered with some state and electrical drivetrains.

All clear? Good. Actually, no, 1 much thing: Mini doesn’t marque a blistery John Cooper Works mentation of its EV hatchback—at slightest not yet, anyway. So portion the SE driven present was positively dripping successful JCW kit, this is each disposable from the options catalog, and changes thing astir the car’s performance. Adds plentifulness to the price, caput you, but we’ll travel backmost to that later.

Extra Mini Miles

WIRED drove some the modular Cooper E and quicker Cooper SE. The basal car is powered by a 135-kW (181-hp), 290-Nm (214-foot-pound) centrifugal driving the beforehand axle. Mini claims a 0-62 mph clip of 7.3 seconds, a apical velocity of 105 mph, and a scope of up to 190 miles from the 36.6-kWh battery, utilizing the WLTP standard. It besides claims an electrical depletion of 4.4 miles per kWh. For context, the erstwhile procreation of Mini EV claimed a circa-140 mile scope from its 28.9-kWh pack.