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German Ambassador Klaus Scharioth (r) and British Ambassador Sir Nigel Sheinwald discuss the electric MINI, which was built in the UK and Germany.

(© German Embassy Washington by Christophe Avril)

At the Los Angeles Auto Show on November 19 and 20, BMW unveiled an all electric version of its iconic Mini Cooper that will soon hit the roads in California, New York and New Jersey.

The Bavarian company will lease about 500 MINIS outfitted with a 35 kilowatt-hour lithium-ion battery and an electric motor to “select private and corporate customers” near LA and New York.

Lessees will get a two-seater Mini with a range of 150 miles, an electronically governed top speed of 95 mph and a 0 to 60 mph acceleration time of about 8.5 seconds.

A two-hour charge using a BMW-designed wall box installed in the lessee's garage uses a maximum of 28 kwH of electricity. At around $0.14 per kilowatt-hour in California, a full tank will cost just a few dollars.

The new MINI is part of BMW's project i, an R&D program aimed at developing city cars. “We see this as a car for 'mega-cities', especially as a second car, which is not so unusual any more,” says BMW's government affairs chief Thomas Becker, who unveiled the cars at an event hosted by German Ambassador Klaus Scharioth on November 17.

Lighter, faster, cheaper, stronger

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The electric MINI's gas flap hides an electrical connector.

(© picture-alliance/dpa)

Drivers will also get the chance to be highly mobile guinea pigs in the company's efforts to refine the technology for mass production. An onboard computer will track their driving behavior in order to show how the cars function in real world conditions.

The biggest question mark, says Becker, is the lithium ion battery that engineers developed in cooperation with experts in Taiwan. “We still do not have any empirical data about how the batteries function in daily use.”

Battery technology was what sank other electric prototypes like GM's EV1, which disappeared from US roads in 2003; the batteries were “too big, too heavy, too weak, and too expensive,” said Becker.

He admits that the electric MINI still faces the same basic challenges; the car weighs in over 500 pounds heavier than its gas-powered sibling and cedes the small back seat to the 5,088-cell battery.

However, the company says that data collected from the electric MINI's will be essential in engineering batteries with longer life spans, lower weights, and quicker recharge times.

The future – smaller, cuter, electric:

While the hybrid market took off in the US, German automakers were focused on high-efficiency clean diesel engines that offered comparable benefits in fuel economy. As environmental regulation and consumer demand for sustainable mobility have increased, however, major German automakers have plugged in to the all-electric and hybrid market as well.

Daimler AG outfitted over 100 Smart Cars with an electric motor and a lithium ion battery in a pilot project in Berlin. The diminutive cars will be able to tank up with electricity at over 500 charging stations operated by the utility RWE, and the company has announced plans for serial production of the electric smarts by 2010.

Volkswagen CEO Martin Winterkorn has also proclaimed that, while clean diesel is an important bridge technology, plug-in electric vehicles are the future of sustainable mobility. His firm inked a deal with Sanyo to develop lithium ion batteries for plug in hybrids.

Will plugging in really help the environment?

With the prospect of more drivers plugging in, environmentalists are looking at the potential environmental costs of increased electricity usage.

Becker said that shifting emissions from vehicles to power plants put increased responsibility on utilities and government. “We cannot make the car better than the electricity,” he said. “How do you compare a mpg rating for a car with an ordinary combustion engine to the electricity that powers the MINI E, which might come from 40 percent coal, 30 percent renewables and 10 percent nuclear.”

A 2007 study by the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Electric Power Research Institute showed that electric vehicles would result in a net decrease in greenhouse gas emissions and toxic pollution, even though most electricity in the US still comes from coal.

If an increased share of renewable sources of electricity are factored into the equation, the environmental gains could be even greater, the study says.