MINI Electric Review 2026

There are other electric hatchbacks that do a much better job on range and interior space than the MINI Electric, so it won’t cut the mustard as a family’s only car. However, if you’re only viewing it as a weekday runabout, then it could still make sense for you if your commute is particularly short. What’s more, it has the kind of style, desirability and fun-factor that few rivals can match, making it a very appealing proposition among small electric cars. For image-conscious EV buyers, it’ll be a toss-up between this and the Honda e.

They say that with great power comes great responsibility, but is it possible to have great power, and to generate it in a really responsible way? Well, with an electric car, or EV for short, it sure is.

Like all pure EVs, the MINI Electric puts out zero tailpipe emissions: what could be more responsible than that? However, while most small EVs feel faster than their modest power and acceleration figures suggest, MINI’s offering has the performance figures to match, helping to make it the fun choice in the class.

Yep, the MINI’s straight-line speed is seriously impressive, its 184PS electric motor hauling it from 0-62mph in 7.3 seconds, and with the generous all-at-once torque you get from an electric motor, the car feels a whole lot brisker than that.

It’s not simply speed that makes the MINI Electric fun, either. MINIs are famed for their go-kart-like handling, and while the switch from combustion to batteries has dented that a fraction, it’s still a very enjoyable car to drive, with tight body control and quick steering. It’s certainly a lot more agile than any other small EV we’ve tried, although at the same time, it’s also less comfortable, too.

The interior is standard MINI fare, with hugely impressive quality, attractive design, strong ergonomics and plenty of luxury toys. The big difference you’ll notice in the electric version is the digital instrument display behind the steering wheel in place of the regular dials, and this looks great and works well.

There’s another difference between regular MINIs and the electric one, too, but this one’s less positive. No MINI is the last word in practicality, sure, but because the car’s batteries are stored under the rear seats, rear space is even more cramped, while the boot is just as tiny.

If you’re planning to regularly carry people or cargo, then rivals such as the Renault Zoe or Peugeot e-208 will suit you much, much better. Those rivals also have a considerably higher driving range, so if you’re planning to use your car for anything more than short-hop weekday commutes, then again, they’ll be a better bet than the MINI.

Other gripes? Well it’s pretty rubbish that the entry-level car misses out on automatic emergency braking - a must-have safety feature in this day and age - and Android users won’t like the fact that they can’t integrate their smartphones.

However, the MINI Electric is like any other MINI in that it’s desirable, charming and likeable, and if anything, the fact that it’s electric makes it even more likeable.

Looking for a second opinon? Why not read heycar's MINI Electric review.

Quick steering makes the nose of the car very keen to turn in, and there’s very little body lean as you change direction.

That gives you the darty feel that you associate with a MINI. By the standards of other small electric cars, it feels very nimble indeed. By the standards of other MINIs, though, there is a difference. Push a bit harder, and you’ll find that the Electric MINI doesn’t have as much grip as its combustion-engined colleagues.

What’s more, the steering doesn’t give you as much feedback, so the action is slightly more diluted. Having said all that, though, the handling is still safe, well-balanced and lots of fun.

Ride comfort has never been an area of particular strength for MINIs, and so it proves with the Electric. It’s fine, and nothing most people won’t be able to cope with, but you do get jostled around in your seat along pockmarked urban streets, while potholes can give you a fair old jolt. Rivals are more settled on the motorway, too.

There’s a reason the Electric MINI wears the Cooper S badge: because with 184PS from its electric motor, it has very nearly as much power. Plant the accelerator, and if anything, it feels even quicker than the petrol-guzzling hot hatch, thanks to strong torque that’s available the very instant that the motor starts spinning.

The stopwatch tells a different story, with the Electric version being about half a second slower in the benchmark 0-62mph sprint, but it still feels seriously quick, and is significantly brisker than rivals such as the Renault Zoe. And because electric cars have a single gear, the strong acceleration remains uninterrupted by pesky gearchanges. 

However, the way in which this prodigious power is unfurled depends on which driving mode you select. There are four: Sport, Mid, Green and Green Plus.

At the sportiest end of the scale, the slightest brush of the right-hand pedal results in a strong, instantaneous pick-up in speed. At the greener end of the gauge, you have to push the pedal much farther for strong acceleration, and your performance is much gentler until you do, encouraging you to drive more placidly.

All versions of the electric MINI come with the usual collection of airbags and electronic stability and traction aids, along with super-bright LED lights front and back, front-and rear Isofix child seat mounting points and an automatic emergency calling system.

However, the base-level 1 trim misses out on automatic emergency braking, which is a safety measure we deem to be essential in this day and age. The 2 trim checks that important box, while 3 trim adds a head-up display, which beams key driving information onto the windscreen so you don’t have to look away from the road as much, and clever adaptive LED headlamps that bend their beams around oncoming cars so as not to dazzle fellow drivers.

Neither the Electric MINI nor the regular MINI Hatch have been crash-tested by Euro NCAP yet.

The MINI Electric is only offered in three-door form - and not as a five-door - and MINIs aren’t exactly famed for their commodious passenger space.

Adult rear passengers will find their knees wedged into the seat in front, like in any MINI, but because the batteries live under the rear seats, requiring them to be mounted higher, and this restricts the (already limited) amount of headroom you get. A Renault Zoe, Honda E or Peugeot e-208 are all much roomier in the back, and they all have five seats as well, while the MINI only has four.

Boot space is just as teeny and in any other MINI, too, but at least it’s no worse. It’s bigger than a Honda E’s, but you still won’t fit more than a few shopping bags in, and a Renault Zoe and Peugeot e-208 have a lot more space.

The charging cables are stored underneath a handy false floor to keep them out of the way, though. The rear bench also drops down in a 60-40 split to let you boost the cargo space available, but you’re left with a step in the load floor.

Everywhere you look there are soft-touch materials, chrome trims and glossy finishes, and these really inject a feeling of class and style.

The variety of the textures and finishes on show also helps the interior design look even more interesting. What’s more, all the chunky switches and knobs work with satisfying slickness and accuracy.  You will find more functional plastics lower down in the footwells, but these are well hidden away and the feeling of quality you get is still greater than in pretty much any other small hatch.

Happily, the main infotainment system is one of the best of its type. The standard 6.5-inch screen is rather small, and the graphics could be a wee bit sharper, but it’s based on BMW’s iDrive operating system, so it’s fantastically easy to use.

It does offer touchscreen functionality, but you won’t bother using it because it’s much easier to scroll through the logically arranged on-screen menus using the rotary dial controller located between the front seats, and there are shortcut buttons to make life even easier. 

All versions have DAB radio, sat-nav, Bluetooth and various connected services. However, iPhone-phobes might be rather disgruntled that Apple Carplay is supported, but Android Auto is not. Upgrade to 3 trim, and you get a larger 8.8-inch screen, Amazon Alexa, wireless phone charging and an upgraded Harman Kardon sound system.

At the time of writing, prices for brand new examples of the MINI Electric sat at around £28,000 for the 1, £30,000 for the 2 and £34,000 for the 3. That's a bit less than the Honda E and roughly similar to the Renault Zoe.

New car buyers also get a £3000 Government grant towards that cost, trimming down what they’ll pay, and the MINI’s comparatively strong resale values will also help you get a decent chunk of your investment back when the time comes to sell the car on.

These solid residuals will also help keep monthly finance payments down, and if you’re thinking of buying on finance, it’s always worth looking on MINI’s websites for online deals and promotions. At the time of writing, the entry-level version was being offered for £299 per month on a four-year PCP following an initial deposit of £4500.

That’s a shade more than quoted by the Honda E, but significantly less than the equivalent figures of the Peugeot e-208 and Renault Zoe.

However, bear in mind that these are laboratory figures, and what you’ll get in the real world will be significantly less. Not that you’ll often juice up your battery fully anyway, because charging to only 80% is advised to prolong the useable life of your battery. 

An 80% charge takes 12 hours on a three-pin domestic socket, a little over three hours on a 7kW wallbox charger, or around half an hour on a 50kW public rapid charger. MINI reckons it’ll cost you about a fiver. 

If you want to know which insurance group your MINI Electric falls into, just take the version you bought, and add 17. You won’t need to be Carol Vorderman to figure out that this means the 1 version sits in group 18, the 2 sits in 19, while the 3 sits in 20. 

Being an EV, you pay no road tax whatsoever, saving private buyers £150 per year, while company car drivers save a whole stack more. You’ll pay no benefit-in-kind tax on electric cars during the 2020-2021 tax year, and you’ll only pay tax on 1% of the car’s value the year after, and on 2% the year after that. That’ll result in truly spectacular savings.

MINI seems to do a decent job on reliability, featuring mid-table in most of the various studies, and because an EV is simpler mechanically than a regular car, it should in theory be more reliable.

Choosing between the various versions of the MINI Electric is as easy as 1, 2, 3, not least because that’s exactly what the trims are called.

The 1 comes with a good amount of standard kit, including two-zone climate control, automatic lights and wipers, cruise control with stopping function, all-round exterior LED lighting,  digital instruments, a leather steering wheel and the navigation-enabled infotainment system.

We’d probably still make the step up to 2 trim, though, as it comes with some very handy bits and pieces including rear parking sensors, a reversing camera, automatic emergency braking, heated front seats, part-leatherette upholstery and ambient lighting. The 3 trim adds front parking sensors, a self-parking function, a panoramic roof, full leather upholstery, a head-up display and an uprated infotainment and sound system.