Testing electric Mini

What is certain is that from next month more Mini Es will appear on Oxfordshire’s roads than anywhere else in Britain.

Both Oxford City Council and Oxfordshire County Council have joined a consortium led by BMW, German parent company of the Cowley-built Mini, to each test-drive five models of the pioneering little prototype from November for a six-month trial.

In addition, BMW is now selecting 20 private drivers from 515 applications already received, to act as gunea pig users of the revolutionary car, which has a top speed of 95mph and a range of between 100 and 150 miles between charges.

The zero-emission car costs as little as 1p a mile to run and can accelerate from 0—62mph in just 8.5 seconds The selected private drivers will live in the area roughly corresponding to a triangle of southern England with London in the east, Oxford in the west, and Andover in the south, the traditional catchment area for utility company Southern Electric. Special ‘Park and Power’ charging points will be set up by Southern Electric and Marks and Spencer in such places as Park and Ride car parks.

Southern Electric will also install a 32 amp charging point in the garage of every private driver selected, capable of charging the Mini from empty to full in four and half hours at a cost of about £2 at current electric prices, compared to about £12 to cover the same distance in a petrol-driven Mini.

The selected drivers, each of whom will pay £330 for the privilege, will also be able to charge their Mini overnight using an ordinary 13 amp plug.

The Mini E is built in Cowley but has its battery and electric motor installed in Germany.

BMW has set up a Mini E consortium with the two councils, Oxford Brookes University — which is helping BMW develop the car — the South East Development Agency (Seeda), Southern Electric and the Government’s Technology Strategy Board, which has part-funded the trial.

The car carries a distinctive yellow plug-in symbol, but otherwise looks exactly like an ordinary internal combustion engine Mini.

Inside the car, the back seat has been removed to make room for the lithium ion battery. The marketing manager for the Mini E, Emma Lowndes, said that BMW hoped to have an electric car for sale by 2015.

She added; “The idea of the trial is to find out how private and fleet users take to electric cars.

“We want to make them desirable. Each Mini E will be equipped with a data logger for the trial”.

And could I learn to love this little car, after taking it for a spin earlier this week?

Definitely. It is a dodgem for grown-ups and huge fun to drive. Heads swivelled in surprise as I glided silently up to traffic lights. And other drivers looked even more astonished when the lights turned green and I whizzed off in the neat little motor, which can do 0—62 in just 8.5 seconds.

The car has only two pedals, an accelerator and a brake, the second of which you hardly use — whenever you slow down, the car starts recharging its battery, and therefore there is no “slack” when you take your foot off the accelerator.

On the downside the entire rear of the car, where you would expect a back seat, is taken up by battery — and you constantly have your eye on the range-metre telling you how much power you have left before the need to recharge. (I covered 50 miles and used just under half the power available).

It would be perfect for commuting or for shopping — there is room in the back for supermarket bags.

If I owned one, though, I would still need another car to take on holiday to Cornwall, or visit family in Manchester.

And there is the rub. Until infrastructure is put in place to enable drivers to change empty batteries for charged ones in a matter of minutes, the Mini E will never replace the internal combustion engine.

Indeed, BMW admits freely that the car is designed for urban, or what it describes as “mega-city”, motoring.

The deputy leader of Oxfordshire County Council, David Robertson, said the councils had invested no money in the project.

He added: “This is quite a coup for Oxfordshire and a good example of private-public partnership.

“In Oxford, there are some canyon streets which trap pollution, and electric cars could be the way forward.”

Certainly electric cars, the first of which to go sale will probably be a Renault in 2011, will shift pollution away from the roads and indeed cut it in real terms.

However, with the high cost of batteries and their limited range, consumer demand is stilll unclear.

On the plus side, batteries are becoming ever lighter and cheaper and a few utilities companies are investigating the possibility of investing in infrastructure.