Minis: Fast and Green

BMW's little road rocket is adaptable

Comments (3)
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
By Jim Motavalli

I watched Barack Obama become the 44th President of the United States just like everyone else, and I heard him say inspiring things about our country pulling together and committing to clean energy and finally doing something about global warming. Despite his graciousness to his predecessor throughout, the whole speech sounded like an indictment of Bush's eight-year inaction, especially on environmental issues.

Obama wants to put a million plug-in hybrid cars on the road by 2015. I applaud the idea, but engineering and manufacturing that many dependable lithium-ion battery packs by then will be a huge challenge.

I'm just back from the Detroit Auto Show, and the search for reliable li-ion was palpably in the Motor City air. Auto moguls wouldn't let you look under the hoods of their concept cars, because they didn't want to give away their battery suppliers. Despite that, electric and plug-in hybrid cars were on nearly every stand.

I love the idea of battery-operated Mini and Smart cars, and both are being tested on the world's roads. An electric Smart was in Detroit, but the main pilot program is in England. Some 500 electric Minis are being built, with California and New York as the U.S. test markets. The cars can be leased, for $850 a month ($200 more than a Honda FCX Clarity fuel-cell car!) to people with a lockable garage.

The electric Mini E features a 204-horsepower motor, and does zero to 62 mph in 8.5 seconds. The lithium-ion batteries (which make the whole thing rather heavy) give it a range of 150 miles.

I hear they're fun to drive, which is no surprise. I happen to be driving a really fun Mini right now, the 2009 John Cooper Works Hardtop. (John Cooper was a legendary tuner in the early days of the 1960s Minis.) Admittedly, this is a rather pricey Mini variant — $33,050 as tested.

The car boasts dynamic traction control, dynamic stability control and electronic differential lock control, but this car is going to stay on the road anyway. The MacPherson strut front, multi-link rear suspension on this car is so stiff it corners without a hint of lean. The downside is a somewhat bone-shaking ride.

The six-speed Getrag gearbox is fun to use.

I was impressed that with all the performance gear this Mini still managed 25 mpg in the city and 33 on the highway. You can have your fun and still get off cheaply at the gas pumps.

Comments (3)

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25 mpg in the city and 33 highway, are you kidding me that is terrible gas mileage for such a compact car, it should do twice that, how can you be impressed by it, you should be sadden

Posted by George on 1.30.09 at 15.34

These greenies are the most in some ways "full of it" group out there, what most people don't know is that there is a turbo-diesel Mini inn europe with a super high torque Peugeot sourced common rail diesel, max power is 110 bhp but who cares with all that torque and gets incredible mileage, I'd love to have a mini clubman diesel here , but super greenies and thier pagan devotion to california emission rules put the knock on the diesel here. As for those plug in hybrids and plug in any car for that matter, yah sure, right, just what the power grid of this country needs, this would be a massive new unprecedented burden on the in many cases flimsy power grid in many areas, including fairfield county CT with just 115 kva main power lines here already operating near or actually over capacity. Then theres the Li-ion or lithium-ion battery, highly developed for small applications like cell phones and laptops, still problem plagued for big battery/high voltage applications like cars, theres also the issue of the raw material source for the lithium mineral itself, the big proven reserves are in china (actually tibet) , bolivia, and the high chilean deserts. Oh its therefore just like any other raw material or commodity, when demand goes through the roof, so will the price of mined lithium, now perhaps if we had a domestic recycling industry to recycle and reprocess lithium from old cell phone and computer batteries. That could boost reserves, of course that would be a "dirty labor intensive industry" which means it would be farmed off to china, again, just like electronics recycling has been. Naturally of course super greenies don't want to talk about swtichgrass and genetically engineered poplar trees as cellulosic ethanol sources or jatropha as a alternative clean diesel oil substitute for trucks, engines and even turbine powered aircraft. when fuel went through the roof in price naturally it cost more to transport both imported and domestically grown raw and processed food crops, thus the higher price of food at the market. It wasn't ethanol raising the price of corn, it was higher diesel costs to run farm machinery to cultivate the corn in the first order. then to move the harvested corn about, Corn has been a multi usecrop for decades, corn syrup has been used in north america as a cane sugar substitute for decades.

Posted by B.P. Dumas on 2.2.09 at 22.14

I've just been selected here in SoCal to receive one of the first Emini coopers for one year, on a lease of $850.00 a month. I have an appointment This includes insurance and roadside assist. The car will have to be locked in my garage every nite, is monitored by Lo-Jac and satellite nav technology in case its stolen by the "competition"! Should be interesteing, as my round trip daily drive on the freeway is 110 miles.

Posted by westcoastcop on 2.5.09 at 18.02

Minis: Fast and Green

BMW's little road rocket is adaptable

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