I was super bummed to hear that only iconic is getting the wheels. We've been looking at them for years now so I can't imagine an EV MINI without them. Plus they are the lightest and most aero 17" wheels that MINI offers. Wonder how much they will cost from MINI separately?

Happy to hear they aren't putting runflats on it though. It would be an exciting change to not have to immediately invest $1000+ just to salvage ride quality. (Then again I'll need to do that anyway because those boring grey 5-spokes just scream "winter beater wheels" to me.)

Man... Buying new cars just isn't as fun as it used to be. Maybe I'm just less easily impressed. 😅

 

uhhhh... Is the SE going to be the first ever BEV without friction brakes?

Mind you I got 100k+ miles out of the brakes on my diesel thanks to engine braking, but that doesn't mean I can strike pads and fluid from the TCO calc.

 

My guess would be $2300 CAD, for a set (just like other OEM wheels), but I haven’t received any offficial weights on the wheels. Do you have those numbers? Where did you get them, how heavy are they, and can I share the info?

 

We should expect 100,000+ km out of the friction brakes for commuting and city driving. That’s double (even triple from some clubmates who responded to my poll) the ICE wear. Of course, that’s comparing to normal EV usage (like my Focus EV). The SE will be the first non-tesla EV to have an established performance enthusiast aftermarket. There is a chance that the SE will be a corner carver, and with that the friction brakes could be even worse hit than the S given the extra weight.

meaning, for a TCO calculation, the SE should have many less friction brake changes than the ICE S, and can most certainly be entered into the math

 

It is great that MINI put those tires on the SE.

And it is nice to see your enthusiasm for the SE. That is the way it should be for any MINI. Congrats!

As for the performance tires, I wonder if you are giving MINI too much credit that the performance tires were part of an attempt to make the SE a performance car; although that might have been an afterthought. The runflat tires are substantially heavier than their none runflat counterpart. Tires being a rotating mass, the acceleration of that rotating mass take more energy than the linear acceleration of the same mass. Making the tires lighter means less energy to accelerate the car as a whole and the more battery mileage that they can claim. The higher the battery mileage is better for car sales. If a performance tire gets them where they want to be for battery mileage, then they can then throw in the performance aspect for no additional cost (the afterthought). Remember, this is the same company that put garbage grade RFTs, not even performance grade RFTs, on the performance version of the MINI, the JCW. Clearly their first thought is not on performance.

 

Low range EV’s are a different world than ICE. Energy efficient hockey pucks are the standard, and can easily gain 10%+ more range.

MINI ditched the run-flat. As I posted... non-runflat F1 Star spec.

Perhaps you were right though, The car was always going to be low range, so perhaps they decided to just own it, not that it is advertised. They could possibly have popped over 200km range if they put them on though.

Driving on energy efficient rubber is horrid. It would have killed the spirited drive capability especially cornering. Spirited driving would have been deadly in any rain level.

 

I am thinking of a future Electric car to replace our current gas powered ones.

However, given the small range that the Mini is offering, it will not be in the selection process unless it jumps into the ranges
other manufactures are offering.

I don't think a range of at least 300 miles is asking too much.

And no, I don't want to drive a Tesla .

 

You are right, the range is abysmal. But that’s what happens when you take 3 year old tech, and cram it into a steel body made for a gas engine.

Though if you take a real look at the distance you travel daily/weekly, you may find that the range may do well for a secondary vehicle or commuting car.

If you qualify for any rebates in your area, and can knock off around $5000, it will be less expensive than the top of the line S (not JCW), and be much less to maintain and run than the S.

It is classified into the first generation of modern electric car and as such it doesn’t fit many people’s needs.

With luck the 2023-24 next generation will be built-for BEV as they promised.

 

I would have seriously looked into the SE if it was available when I was shopping. But I needed a functional car last year =P
Maybe in another 15-20 years (hopefully when I'm in the market again), everything will be electric by then?

 

Not only will they be electric, but you won't even drive it!

 

I quite enjoy driving so maybe it'll just be all the "bad" drivers that get self-driving cars =P
I probably sound like a grouchy old man, but I don't need so much technology in my car! Just give me the "pure driving experience" and a music system =)

 

Well auto drive might come in handy when they take my keys away. Hopefully won't be for a few more decades.

DOT flunked out my mom at 89 yo, she had to bum rides from there. I

f they make auto drive easy to use for seniors, they will sell a lot of them!

 

I am reminded of a comment I heard, many years ago, about computer hard drives- there are 2 kinds of hard drives, those that have failed and those that are going to fail... And then there is the “Oh, what just happened to my cell phone? I’ve never seen that before!” It is one thing for that to happen with a cell phone, it is another thing for that to happen with something that your life depends on... Just sayin’.

I also wonder at what point these autonomous driving cars will see the group of deer in the median of a highway and slow the car down so you don’t hit the one that decides the grass is greener on the other side of the roadway. Or see the deer that is about to jump off a 5’ high ledge next to the highway and slow the car so you don’t hit it when it does jump. Or see, through the underside of a parked car, the legs of a kid standing in front of that car giving you an extra second or two to slow/stop before the kid runs out in the road. I’ve been there, on each of those. I know, the instructions say your are still supposed to be in control of the car, but what granny or wisea$$ (think YouTube posts of people sleeping behind the wheel of their Tesla) is going to do that if the car is driving itself? Sorry, not for me...

 

Agreed, I don't think fully autonomous cars are going to happen in my lifetime.

I like the idea of getting trash drivers off the roads... but there is a much simpler solution that the US keeps ignoring. Have a driver's training and testing method that's actually worth a damn. Don't know where to start? Go just about anywhere in Europe (but maybe start in DE).

I did play around with radar cruise for the first time this fall. It was a nice bit of mental off load for longer drives, but by no means is it going to be a requirement for my next car. With how light modern electric power steering is I think lane keep is just one step too lazy. Then again I know people that still don't trust cruise control so ...¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Back to the SE. ~115 practical miles of range, same acceleration as an ICE MCS, ~$28,000 after rebate and after I buy the plug wheels that should be standard on the car. I'm less and less convinced that I shouldn't buy a Veloster N before the SE even launches.

 

Years ago (decades?), I could simply engage the regular cruise control, set at 70, and drive for an hour or more on the highway before I hit some traffic (grandma in the right lane, great grandma in the left, truck in the center) and had to turn it back off.

Today, I would hit traffic on the same highway in only a few minutes. That's why I like the new adaptive cruise control. I set it for 70, but that becomes simply the max. ACC is nearly impossible to find on a new MINI and worse on used MINI's.

 

Approximately one month before deliveries start. Any Admin’s out there?
Is there any chance the F56 SE will get it’s own sub-section? There may only be 300 of us in North America, but we could use a place for documenting and helping - just like the other chassis do.

“SE” is too short of a search term. “Electric”, too common, so it’s difficult for us to tag common search phrases within the 3rd gen section.

I’m also pretty sure that some folks won’t want to see our threads.

 

Oh, I hope, in this MINI community, that isn’t true.

However, as you said otherwise, the SE does need its own section. I, for one, will be very interested in reading about other’s experiences with the SE.

 

There are a bunch of cool things Mini could have done, and didn’t do:
Excellent 0-60 Performance
Long battery range
Rebuildable battery pack

What they should have done is build something with the cells down low in the frame; a low center of gravity and the possibility of dual-motors and high performance.

But what Mini did instead is what they promised us they DON’T do: They took an existing chassis, pulled the engine/transmission, and slapped in a battery/motor.

That is NOT the Mini promise! The Mini promise is that they begin by designing the JCW, and then they take away. Not the other way around. This car is a serious disappointment. We own a Countryman SE and Mini really did a poor job with that as well. For starters, you cannot put the car into 4WD mode. It’s a 4WD car which doesn’t let the driver engage 4WD, and if there isn’t enough battery, you get no 4WD. And it’s not a PHEV, which means you don’t get the 150,000 mile CARB emissions warranty.

As for the all-electric Mini... there’s just nothing whatsoever that Mini’s done to demonstrate the slightest commitment to electric vehicles. Here we have Tesla making a killing out of enthusiast electric cars, and Mini/BMW can’t see it at all. The tiny Tesla is going to wipe out BMW/Mini in the future, because electric IS the future and these guys are planted firmly in the past. There’s absolutely no innovation whatsoever in this car. It’s a big disappointment to me.

 

Well I don't know about all that doom and gloom, but yeah, the SE should have it's own section!

 

Well.... I dug a little deeper. Maybe you're right.
First, I looked at the Mini website: 0-60 in 7.9 seconds. It's ok. Not amazing, but ok.
Then I compared it to a Fiat electric, Leaf, and a Tesla.
The Fiat starts at $33,000
The Leaf starts at $29,000
The Mini starts at $29,000
The Tesla starts at $39,000

But the Tesla doesn't have the $7,500 rebate any more, because they've sold so many. So it's closer to:
Tesla: $39,000
Mini: $22,500

The Mini has a terrible range, but it's a very low price for an attractive and fun car. The Fiat and Leaf are super-boring, and the Tesla interior is unbelievably bland. Also, if you add options to a Tesla, the price skyrockets. It's very easy for that $39,000 car to cost $55,000 or more. The Tesla is going to cost two to three times more, once you add in the rebate. That's a lot of money.

I would still like to wait for an electric car that has some kind of rebuildable or repairable battery system. As an environmental solution, having to trash the entire car due to battery failure is a big downside to me.

 

The SE is a compromise car - no question.
It's going to be a brilliant city and commuting car, but funny enough, it would be classified as a First-generation modern EV, since the guts of it are from an i3s.
You also nailed it: The SE will bring a level of comfort and fun that does not exist as yet in the low-range EV market.

I'm sorry you feel you have to wait for an EV that has a rebuildable traction pack. Perhaps if you research EV owners, you will find that it is a very small percentage (of non-Nissan) EV owners that have had to go down that route across most brands.
There isn't any EV on the market that can't have it's traction pack replaced, either under warranty or out of warranty. You do not have to trash the entire car if there is a failure, but I suppose you are saying it's "not worth the repair".
Having said that, replacements out-of-warranty pricing has dropped dramatically and can be as little as $2-4K depending on the brand. Expensive? Remind me the cost to replace an N14 or W11...
Traction packs are reusable and recyclable, across all brands. If you'd like to learn more about EV's feel free to follow my FB page https://www.facebook.com/myevlife/

Going back to your earlier comment about innovation... The engineers did an amazing job shoving an i3 into the F56 platform, and somehow only adding 300lbs to the F56 whilst maintaining the i3's performance numbers (remember the i3 is carbon fiber). They did this without having any elements enter the cabin space. That is a very impressive feat.

MINI also decided to put performance rubber on the car. Someone along the line said - "ya, screw range, let's make this fun" with the lowest center of gravity of any MINI, and a wicked fast off-the-line performance it has the chance to be the best performing out-of-the-box AutoX MINI yet.

The SE is not for everyone.
But for those that it does fit, it will be a real hoot, and possibly cheap.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I was just notified I can go and test drive an SE tonight...

 

 

FIAT = Boring...

Spoken as someone who has never been within 50 ft of one I suspect...

115 mile range is well within normal commuting distances. I'd rather have a light car than a heavy one that's great at road tripping.

The SE isn't trying to be all things to all buyers, and that's part of it's appeal. You make a car to appeal to everyone and that's how you get beige jellybean CUVs.

(Oops, knee jerk response. I repeated some stuff jamez already said. Let us know how the test drive goes!)

 

Ok, I’ll certainly agree that they built a BMW i3 that isn’t the ugliest car ever built. In fact, it’s the best-looking electric car I’ve seen.

And I’m looking forward to your test drive report. I don’t mind being proven wrong!

I’ve been a plug-in car owner for eight years; I just installed a WattStation in the garage last weekend (I bought it used for $200!). I am fastidious about car maintenance and I keep my cars for a long time. It’s not a dig against BMW so much as all electric car makers that the batteries are not reusable.

What I mean is, a typical car engine can be maintained, repaired and rebuilt. But, at least from the manufacturer’s perspective, EV batteries are not maintainable, repairable, or replaceable (unless you replace the entire battery pack, at an outrageous price). I know that very smart, dedicated people have figured this out, especially with Prius. But it shouldn’t be some kind of voodoo! The car itself should simply report under voltage cells and it should rebalance the pack itself after any bad cells are replaced. Maybe if we get progressive leadership in America again, they’ll mandate this sort of thing. EV’s are good for the environment, and preventing built-in obsolescence is one way of doing so.

 

Planned obsolescence and the inability to work on cars with only simple tools has been trending the wrong direction for 10 years. I really don't think that's going to change with EVs unless you have an advanced electrical engineering degree. Honestly there's no incentive to make a long lasting car when the tech is outdated in 3 years.