After dropping hints and teasers throughout the year, BMW Group Malaysia has finally launched the fully electric MINI Cooper SE. It broke cover just a little over a year ago, and there’s just one configuration on offer here. It’s fully imported from the UK and is priced at a cool RM218,380 (after SST exemption; otherwise it’s RM225,888). The equipment list, as you’ll find out, is actually pretty impressive considering the price.
Included in the price is a four-year unlimited mileage warranty with free scheduled service, as well as an eight-year or 100,000 km warranty for the high voltage battery. Just to compare, the Cooper SE in Thailand is priced at RM304k.
The Cooper SE shares the same UKL platform as the regular 3 Door and 5 Door hatches, so dimensions, design proportions, and interior space are more or less identical. Its electric propulsion unit is rather familiar, actually, one derived from the BMW i3s.
The compact electric motor (which weighs less than a conventional engine) provides 184 hp (135 kW) at 7,000 rpm and 270 Nm of torque from 100 to 1,000 rpm. Comparatively, the regular Cooper S’ offers 192 hp and 280 Nm of torque from its B48 2.0 litre engine.
Being a city car, the Cooper SE is tuned specifically to provide peak acceleration at up to 60 km/h. As such, the 0-60 km/h sprint is done in 3.9 seconds, but the century sprint is achieved in 7.3 seconds. A single-stage transmission is standard, and note that the top speed is electronically limited to 150 km/h.
Under the floor rests a new, specially-developed T-shaped 32.6 kWh lithium-ion battery pack with a net content of 28.9 kWh and operates at 350.4 volts. MINI says this is good for a driving range of up to 234 km (WLTP cycle; 270 km on NEDC cycle).
For charging, the car comes with an 11 kW onboard charger and a Type 2 to 3-pin household plug charging cable (dubbed the contingency cable) as standard. Of course, owners are recommended to get the optional 22 kW MINI Wallbox Plus (with an integrated Type 2 cable), available for RM6,500. An additional five-metre, Type 2 three-phase cable for use with public chargers goes for RM1,388.20.
Charging the car from 0-80% takes 12 hours with the contingency cable (3-pin household plug). With an 11 kW three-phase wallbox, it takes 3.5 hours to fully charge the car (2.5 hours from 0-80%), or 4.2 hours through a 7.4 kW single-phase wallbox. It also supports up to 50 kW DC fast-charging, taking just 1.4 hours for a full charge (36 minutes from 0-80%), but this requires a CCS Combo 2 connection.
To provide protection for the battery, the car’s height is raised by 18 mm, and a solid base plate protects it from road debris. In the event of an accident, an automatic failsafe function immediately switches off all drive components. With all these, the Cooper SE weighs just 145 kg more than the Cooper S 3 Door. Not bad.
Other unique features include two levels of brake regeneration (-0.19 m/s/s and -0.11 m/s/s), single-joint McPherson strut with aluminium swivel bearing up front, rear multi-link setup, with weight-optimised trailing arms. No adaptive dampers or sports suspension here.
Design-wise, the EV is pretty distinctive, featuring psychedelic yellow highlights on the closed radiator grille, side mirror caps, scuttle plates, alloy wheels, and tailgate decors. We get the larger 17-inch Power Spoke wheels (previously called Corona Spoke) that’s unique only to the Cooper SE. Matrix LED headlights and tail lights with the Union Jack motif are standard. Three colours are available – Chili Red, British Racing Green, and White Silver, which you see here.
Inside, you get the familiar MINI Hatch cabin, except the driver gets a brand new 5.5-inch digital instrument display with the same yellow theme. There’s also a yellow start-stop ignition toggle instead of red, eDrive mode (Sport, Mid, Green, and Green+), dual-zone climate control, 12-colour ambient lighting system, and the range-topping 8.8-inch touchscreen MINI Visual Boost with MINI Connected and Apple CarPlay.
Also on are head-up display, 12-speaker Harman Kardon Sound System, a wireless charging tray in the centre armrest, Carbon Black interior appointments, anthracite headliner, and leather seats with cross punch upholstery. Boot space remains unimpeded with 211 litres (same as the regular 3 Door), and can be expanded to 731 litres.
Lastly, for safety, the Cooper SE gets the Driving Assistant and Parking Assistant packs as standard, which includes functions such as autonomous emergency braking (Light City Braking Function; between 6 km/h to 60 km/h), Traffic Sign Recognition, as well as Approach Control Warning and Person Warning. You may browse CarBase.my for a more detailed breakdown of its specifications.
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Would be lovely to drive in Penang island.
For same price, better buy Toyota RAV4.
Saga 35th Anniversary Edition
Very nice and pls give us a more attractive price for the i3s as well!!
I3 have been discontinued.
But its nice to see vw in tiguan allspace, now mini coming up with cheaper alternatives.
The Corona car is coming. Runaway!
Cheaper and better than other dinasuaur Mini Cooper
Very the interesting price for a city car and the spec is pretty impressive I must say. Now we know the price to replace the battery for the 530e is around 5k per module. How many modules does this Mini have considering it’s a pure EV?
The 530e battery is different to the Mini or the i3s. Both Mini and i3s battery will outlast the car for more than 10 years before you need to replace them. It’s a busted myth that you need to replace ev battery every 5 years. Thats Renault Zoe still running around Malaysia for the last 6 years and yet non of them need to replace the battery pack anytime soon cause the health of the battery still above 95% on average. So there you go, don’t get spook by the anti-ev fossil fuel company propaganda.
I am attracted to that price and that output number. Then I started to count the roadtax cost. RM 730+. Is it worth it? What do you think?
This is a much better deal than the kosong Leaf.
made in england. eletrical stuff. hmmmm….not a convincing combination
dont think the car has blind spot monitors
1) Excise Duty Reduction With Government Approved Hybrid* or Electrical* Vehicle Incentive.Why???? Estimated Can Reduce RM 30K
2) Road Tax RM 724.00 based from T-shaped 32.6 kWh lithium-ion battery pack Compare with Road Tax RM 90.00 Mini Cooper Countryman SE ALL4 7.7kwh lithium-ion battery pack. Why??
3) Fully Imposed CBU Mini Cooper SE Why not Using CKD Estimated can reduce RM 50k
Thank You