One therefore questions the reason for what must have been an expensive engineering exercise. The official line is that Mini wants to be first with a convertible EV, but reading between the lines, I think it’s testing the water ahead of the all-new Mini electric hatchback (coming in 2024) and an as-yet-unconfirmed electric convertible version of it.
With a real-world range of less than 100 miles (even in summery Mallorca, it predicted only 93 miles), this is strictly an urban runabout.
As you would hope, the Electric Convertible has been given extra strengthening to cope with the loss of the tin roof. It thus feels secure and lacks much scuttle shake.
The cost is weight – an extra 105kg of it. As such, the 0-62mph time slips to 8.2sec, a 0.9sec deficit, although that hardly makes many odds when the wind is in your hair.
Like the BMW i3, the Electric Convertible uses BMW’s patented ‘hybrid synchronous’ motor design, yielding better power density and a wider power band than most. As in the i3, it’s effective in practice, giving the sort of reaction and pace that’s missing from most EVs; even at 80mph-plus, it doesn’t feel like it’s running out of puff.
There are various driving modes that tweak the throttle reactivity and steering weight (Sport right through to Green Plus), along with adjustable regenerative braking for the possibility of one-pedal driving.