CARS : BATTERY- POWERED MINI TAKEN FOR A SPIN / THE FINANCIAL TIMES ( RECOMMENDED READING )

Battery-powered Mini taken for a spin

Published: September 21 2010 17:16

Ian Ross, a 50-year-old accountant who lives near London, recently joined the vanguard of vehicle electrification when he picked up the keys for a battery-powered Mini E.

Mr Ross drove the car for several months and kept notes on the experience for BMW, which owns the British brand. The German carmaker road-tested the electric Mini with more than 600 drivers it calls “pioneers” in the UK, Germany and the US, in one of the biggest real-life trials of plug-in cars to date.

How drivers respond to electric cars in real-life driving conditions is no small matter for the industry.

Carmakers have known how to make battery-powered vehicles for more than a century. But at least as important as electric cars’ mechanics – and arguably more, manufacturers say – is how drivers use them in real-life driving conditions, and whether they were willing to put up with the limitations imposed by the frequent need to plug them in.

BMW says the Mini E trial yielded some positive findings about driving charging patterns that could, if repeated elsewhere, bode well for mass-market consumers’ acceptance of electric cars.

Mr Ross said the Mini E took some getting used to as a left-hand-drive vehicle in a country where right-hand drive is the norm. Like other test participants, he did not like the fact that the car had just two seats and scant boot space because of its large battery pack.

However, he was pleased with the car’s quiet motor, which gives off just a whirr even at high speeds, and its powerful torque.

“It’s like an on-off switch, almost, in terms of how the power comes on,” he says. “You can get going a lot quicker than you think if you’re not careful.”

He describes recharging the car at home as a convenience, not a hindrance: “It certainly beats getting soaked in pouring rain at the filling station.”

BMW is poring over Mr Ross’s notes, and those of the other testers, as it prepares a significant push into electric vehicles over the coming three years.

The world’s largest luxury carmaker has no plans to produce electric Minis, but from 2013 will launch a sub-brand devoted to urban electric cars, which it is developing under the code-name Megacity.

In the Mini E pilot, BMW says, most participants said they were pleasantly surprised to find they drove less than they thought.

Glenn Schmidt, a BMW governmental affairs executive, says: “They’re driving their Mini Es just like normal vehicles.”

The car has a driving range of about 100 miles on a single electric charge. Most in the German leg of the test drove their car an average of 38km a day, meaning they had to recharge only three times a week, and were able to do it at home.

The findings jar with claims by some carmakers, including Toyota, who are sceptical about pure electric cars, and claim that their limited battery power will relegate them to tiny niche markets.

Consumers, some sceptical executives and industry analysts say, will not accept them unless there is a place to recharge them on almost every corner.

General Motors speaks of “range anxiety” among plug-in cars’ drivers, and for this reason is including a petrol “range extender” in its forthcoming Chevrolet Volt. But Better Place, a US company building nationwide electric-car charging infrastructure in Israel and Denmark, has concluded that most drivers will recharge their cars at home or work, relying only rarely on charging spots in other public places.

The company plans only about 2,000 public charging spots in Israel when it launches next year. It will concentrate its roll-out on offering each subscriber one point each at home and at work.

A UK executive at EDF, the French electricity group, which is installing charging points in Britain and around Europe, agrees that most drivers of electric cars will recharge at home or at work. “A lot of the debate is focused on streets, but less than 2 per cent of recharging will be [there],” says Bethan Carver.

Mr Ross, with a 33-mile commute from his home in Wokingham, west of London, to Surrey in the south, pushed the electric Mini’s limits. He recharged it at home and at work.

However, he did worry about where to recharge on trips away from his usual commuting route. The lack of standardised charging points also posed a problem. In order to visit the Westfield shopping centre in west London, he says, BMW had to send him another cable.

He now says he would consider buying an electric car, once they become available at the “right price”, although it would have to be a four-seater. (BMW says that its Megacity vehicle will have a flat battery pack, making the Mini E’s rear seat-hoarding battery a thing of the past).

He also would like a car with a longer range. “There have to be a lot fewer barriers if it’s going to get to maturity.”

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2010.