Mini Cooper S Electric (J01): EV got soul

On the surface, electric vehicles are wonderful. Emissions-free driving, silently zipping about. If you wanted to go fast, just prod the throttle and you get launched forward with a surge of instant torque.

But at one point, drive enough electric vehicles and you’ll notice that eventually, these inherent perks all disappear and you’re left with something that feels like an enlarged golf cart.

Hence, why some brands lean heavily into making EVs as futuristic as possible and cram it with tech, essentially turning them into gadgets on wheels, then some brands focus on performance, and then there are some that focus on personality.

But when you’re a manufacturer with heritage on the line, you know you’ve gotta make a serious effort to preserve the name. And with Mini making the jump to electric, having a name as legendary as the Cooper become a BEV means it must preserve that iconic go-kart feel and not fall into the same trap of being another golf cart when the honeymoon period wears off.

And to give them credit, they succeeded at making the Mini Cooper S Electric one of the most fun and soulful electric vehicles you can buy to date.

While not exactly “Mini” as its predecessors, the car measures 3,858mm long, 1,756mm wide, and 1,460mm tall, it has every bit of personality and charm as they did.

The design? Apart from the smooth bodywork and closed-off grille, It’s extremely expressive, especially thanks to those configurable LED headlights and taillights.

By default, the daytime running lights are the circles, but you can also enable the inner lights to give the car a sportier, serious appearance. Ditto for the rear lights, which can either become the Union Jack or a sporty design. Same with the funky 18-inch multi-spoke wheels, they urge onlookers to take a second look at the vehicle itself.

The Mini’s eccentricness extends into the interior– the dashboard and door cards are made out of knitted fabric. It’s different and elevates the cabin feel, but keeping it clean would be your biggest problem. This unit had multiple stains that couldn’t be removed by regular means.

It also differs in how it does your usual luxury car affairs, like how the ambient lighting is projected onto the dashboard, the wireless charger is built into the extremely long central storage space (with a tiny cubby and cup holder partitions), with the only physical switchgear being a gear selector toggle, your “turn-key” ignition, “experiences” selector, and volume knob.

This sits beneath a circular 9.5-inch OLED screen. Unfortunately, Mini has crammed all the functions into this screen. Digital climate controls, your speedometer, and other functions are found here.

A few other functions are also mirrored on a pop-up heads-up display, which at least makes it easier to keep track of your speed, navigation, and ADAS without taking your eyes off the road.

The interface is equally eccentric, with large icons, fancy transitions, and animations that will either make you call it cute (like the digital assistant), or wonder if Mini’s trying too hard to be in touch with the younger generation, like how your driving modes are called “Experiences”, and they come with sound bits, like entering “Go Kart” mode greets you with a “Woo-hoo!”

Another quip with the interface is that a lot of items are buried behind menus (and locked behind a Mini ID) and you’ll need a good 30 minutes to set it up the first time. Afterward, you’ll use Apple CarPlay or Android Auto, which is limited to a square interface within the circle. At least, the sound is piped out through a good 10-speaker Harman Kardon sound system.

This car being driver-oriented means it fits you like a glove, quite literally. It’s very easy to find the ideal driving position with great visibility, but if you’re on the taller side of the population, the seating position might be a bit awkward as you’ll have to compromise since your upward vision will be obstructed.

The leather-wrapped seats of the Cooper are fairly comfortable, with the driver’s seat getting power adjustments and a seat massaging function, enough to make longer journeys comfortable.

Getting in the rear seats is easy with a tug on a leash to fold the front down, but don’t expect to fit in the rear comfortably if you’re tall. Just either use the rear for cargo as you only have 210L with the seats up (it grows to 800L with the seats down) or put people inside as a last resort.

But the reason you get a Mini is for its go-kart-like driving dynamics. It has a single front-mounted electric motor with 218 horsepower and 330 Nm, mated to a 54.2-kWh lithium-ion battery pack.

The diminutive size, instant torque, and piped-in sounds make it feel like a pocket rocket.

Pair that with the incredibly direct, nicely weighted, and communicative steering, smooth brakes that transition well from regenerative to mechanical stopping power, and peppy handling, and it’s already obvious that the folks at BMW, er, Mini, have done very well to translate the go-kart feeling to an electric Cooper.

But that snappy handling and short wheelbase (of 2,526mm) comes at a cost, and the ride is harsh, with bumps and undulations being transmitted into the cabin, and it’s a fairly noisy ride because of the low-profile rubber. But if you got rid of all of that, you’d also lose the “connected” sensation that this car provides to the driver.

In the city, the size also makes it extremely easy to putter around tight spaces and squeeze through traffic, but its low ground clearance means you’ll have to watch out for taller-than-usual speed humps and curbs.

As for range, the touted range is around 402km, but based on my testing, I got half of that. A full charge gave an estimate of 281km, and a trip from BGC to Clark brought that down to 192km. It’s a car that you won’t be able to bring out on a long road trip (at least with our current infrastructure), but at least it supports DC fast charging via the CCS2 port.

At Php 3,300,000, it’s unashamedly a toy for those who can afford it, not your sensible mini electric city runabout. For the purists out there, Mini Philippines still sells the ICE version of the Cooper S, but even the three-door is priced higher at Php 3,699,000 compared to the Cooper S Electric.

The reason? Apart from the tax breaks and incentives that EVs enjoy in the Philippines, the Cooper S Electric (J01) is sourced from China thanks to a joint venture called Spotlight Automotive, which was made between GWM and BMW (UK production will commence in 2026), while the Cooper SE (F66) comes from the UK.

So if the car’s origins don’t bother you and you can live with an electric vehicle, the electric Cooper S is one toy car that should be on your radar.

^{Photos by Sam Surla}