Mini Cooper SE review: The electric Mini shifts up a gear

When BMW first electrified the Mini in 2020, I’ll be the first to admit that I wasn’t really taken with it. I felt as though Mini hadn’t moved far enough over the combustion version. It was essentially the same car and I thought that was a little, well, boring. Paired with range that didn’t really shake things up, it was a car that didn’t get too much praise.

But such is the Mini that it didn’t matter. The Mini Electric (or Mini Cooper SE as it was more widely known) went on to sell well, and early comparisons to “more innovative” models like the Honda e fell flat. The Honda e was discontinued after selling only 12,000 models in the three years of its life; the Mini Electric sold over 45,000 models in 2023 alone.

That brings us to the new electric Mini Cooper.

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The Disconnekt Downlow

The Mini Cooper SE is a welcome refresh over the previous Mini Electric, bringing a fresh new design on the exterior and the interior, as well as a new tech loadout. The Cooper SE has more power, but more importantly a higher capacity battery to give a little more range making it an easier car to live with. It’s so much fun to drive, a really exciting car when you get behind the wheel and the interior is a great place to be.

The back seats are a little small and the luggage capacity is limited – while the lack of a driver display makes the head-up display an essential option. The central OLED display looks great and is easy enough to interact with, but I’m not totally sold on the implementation of the augmented reality navigation. Overall though, the Mini Cooper SE is a wonderful small electric car, that’s going to be a lot of fun for a lot of people.

See the Mini Cooper SE here on Mini.co.uk from £34,500

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Mini Cooper SE fun stuff: Design, interior and technology

Mini is simplifying its range, with Cooper now being the name for the small one, Countryman the big one and Aceman slotting into the middle. The Hatch name has been retired and the Clubman has been discontinued. I loved the Clubman’s barn-style rear doors, but according to Mini, the Clubman isn’t coming back.

The electric version of the Cooper comes in two forms this time around, an instant bump over the solitary version previously offered, so there’s the Cooper E and the Cooper SE. The Cooper E is the replacement for the previous generation, while the Cooper SE is the missing part of the puzzle, getting more power and a longer range, instantly addressing one of the complaints about the previous model.

There are a range of trims too, covering Classic, Exclusive and Sport – the latter model getting John Cooper Works badging, as pictured here. Beyond that there are three equipment levels – 1, 2, 3 – all building on the standard equipment and adding things like the heads-up display (Level 1), or a panoramic sunroof (Level 2) or augmented reality navigation (which I’ll talk about later) in Level 3.

In terms of exterior design, the Cooper is unquestionably Mini. The distinctive lights on the front are softening and getting progressively more integrated, but the overall proportionality of the car, means it still looks and feels like a Mini. That also means the boot is a little small at 210 litres, while the two back seats suffer with not much knee space, which you sort of expect from a Mini.

This is a driver’s car, with much more space in the front, plenty of headroom and a comfortable driving position. It is a compact car, not venturing into crossover territory, so it hangs onto that go-kart feel that Mini is known for.

The finish is great, with Mini using a range of recycled fabrics on the interior and shaking up the layout of things over the previous Mini family. Gone is the driver display, replaced by a heads-up display on a glass panel that extends out of the dash – but not on the entry-level model.

What Mini hasn’t removed, however, are the toggle switches in the centre of the car. These now offer the power toggle, drive selector and an Experiences switch. That Experiences switch is designed to give the car some personality, moving through what are essentially driving modes, but dressed up with light support and sound changes. Go-Kart boosts the throttle response to a sportier drive, while Green dulls it slightly to save energy – most of the other modes are about aesthetics.

A whole new interior technology experience

But I was more taken with the technology changes as a whole. Those Experience Modes take advantage of the big circular OLED display sitting in the centre of the car, as well as the light projector that sits behind it which will change the ambient lighting based on the mode you select.

The new OLED display measures 9.45-inches in diameter and sits proudly in the centre of the car. It’s touchscreen, providing all your infotainment, as well as access to a lot of other functions, including climate control. There are a couple of separate buttons for the window demister and mirror adjustment, but otherwise it’s touchscreen for everything.

Like other models adopting this solitary central display, the top of the display features pertinent driving information, while the bottom of the screen is where you’ll find the home and apps buttons and so on. It’s easy enough to use, but the experience is definitely boosted by the heads-up display. This will give you direct information like speed, right in your eyeline, though the elevating glass panel isn’t quite as clean as the solution you’ll find in, for example, the VW ID.3, which is projected onto the windscreen.

Navigation is displayed on the central display with arrows on the heads-up display and I found the navigation to be pretty good overall, certainly easy enough to use. Then there’s the augmented reality part of the package. This uses the front cameras on the car to display the scene ahead of you on the display, with an AR arrow floating on it. I’ve experienced similar solutions from Mercedes and others and it’s a great bit of tech. But it’s also a little sad that you have to look for it in the centre of the car and if you don’t know where you’re going, your eyes should really be on the road instead.

In reality, I’d prefer AR navigation to be projected on the windscreen. Again, that’s something that VW is doing and I experienced it on the new Audi Q6 e-tron recently too, so as fancy as it looks on the Mini, it’s not the best implementation of augmented reality out there.

The Mini systems are good, the central display is obviously a feature and there’s still support for wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. Those just sit in a square section of the display, which looks and feels less impressive than the native Mini Operating System 9 interface. People love CarPlay from their iPhone, but you’d also lose out on that AR navigation if you weren’t using the native navigation – so I’d encourage you to give the native systems a go before jumping straight to your phone.

Mini Cooper SE essentials: The drive, performance and handling

Jump into the driver’s seat and you’ll find it’s a really comfortable place to be. I especially like the driver armrest, as it’s really easy to nestle in and relax. But don’t relax too much, because the Mini hangs onto its go-kart feeling, with a taut and sporty experience once you put it in drive.

There’s a 135kW motor powering the front wheels on the Cooper E, while the Cooper SE gets a 160kW motor. That makes the Cooper SE a little more spritely – 0-62mph in 6.7 seconds, but having driven both models, I didn’t feel a huge difference in the power – there’s only 0.6 seconds difference between them.

The Cooper E has a 36.6kWh battery, while the Cooper SE benefits from a larger 49.2kWh battery; the charging rate is different too, with the Cooper E peaking at 75kW, while the Cooper SE benefits from faster 95kW charging. Neither is hugely fast, but the aim here seems to be to charge your car from 10-80 per cent in around 30 minutes.

So to the range. The Cooper E range is listed as up to 189 miles; the Cooper SE is up to 249 miles – which is a lot more useful than it was in the original Mini Electric (which claimed 145 miles, but delivered about 120). The average consumption my test car reported was 3.9 miles per kWh, which would be around 190 miles and that was without trying to conserve energy. You can boost the efficiency by flicking into B (battery) mode to boost the regeneration for a one-pedal driving experience.

And there’s no shortage to fun to the drive either. The steering is nice and sharp, with the power running through the front wheels, you’ll occasionally get a torque steer squirm when turning out of junction and putting your foot down. The suspension is on the firm side, certainly designed to make it a sporty drive, but you will have to ease off the power when you come to speed bumps.

All-in-all, it’s easy to get excited about the driving experience of the Mini Cooper SE. It feels like a hot hatch; it feels like a Mini should.

Should I buy a Mini Cooper SE?

The Mini Cooper SE (and the Cooper E) is just a great car to drive. If you don’t have to worry about backseat comfort or how much luggage you might want to port around, this latest Mini has managed to hang on to its character. Compact hatches are losing out to SUVs, but the Mini continues to be popular – and when it drives as well as this, it’s easy to see why.

With sharp new looks, a refreshed interior with a new range of tech, the Mini Cooper feels like a different car to its predecessor. That’s a good thing and I’m sure that this peppy little hatch will continue to be a popular urban runaround.

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