Update on BMW's Electric Mini
by Andrew Posner, Providence, Rhode Island 
on 10.19.08
Update on BMW's Plans
Back in July we reported on BMW's plans to make 500 electric Mini Coopers available in the California market. At the time, we were thinking that while it's great to see BMW planing to make available what was once an unofficial concept, it's also possible that BMW is simply rolling out 500 Mini-Coopers because "California has a mandate for automakers to make 7,500 zero-emissions cars by 2014." Thus we were excited about the news, but cautious about what it would mean for a larger scale introduction of electric vehicles.
Now we have some more details about the rollout of these cars.
According to Bloomberg.com, BMW will be leasing "500 electric Mini Cooper small cars in New York, New Jersey and California early next year." The cars, which only have two seats (with the rest of the space taken up by batteries), will have a range of 150 miles, and will be " leased to customers for one year with an option for an extension."
Testing the Waters
Just as other automakers have been doing with experimental hydrogen cars, BMW will be using the "500 Minis primarily to gather information about performance," although one wonders whether the real intent is to get free publicity and to better gauge consumer interest in the vehicles. Gas prices, which have stabilized recently, as well as any potential climate change legislation implemented by the next U.S. president, will go a long way in determining how popular and likely a large-scale rollout of electric Minis might be. It's probably best to view this 500 car rollout as a way of testing the waters--beginning to establish a green brand without having to go all-in.
Either way, we now know that the cars won't only be available in California, and we also have some data on the lease terms and the mileage. However, "BMW didn't say what the cost would be or how customers can apply."
Via: ::Bloomberg
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More on BMW's Electric Mini
BMW Builds Electric Mini for California
BMW's Building an Electric Mini, You Can't Have One
BMW to Lease 490 All-electric Minis to Californians
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As much as I love the idea of electric cars, wouldn't it make more sense to improve the mileage of ALL new cars sold by something like 5-10% (which should be relatively easy given enough time) rather than make such a small drop in the bucket?
"California has a mandate for automakers to make 7,500 zero-emissions cars by 2014."
Didn't we do this before with little success?
Small improvements over a wide scale is just as good in many instances over big improvements over a small scale.
@JCA saying "Small improvements over a wide scale is just as good in many instances over big improvements over a small scale."
but why do small improvements, when the technological knowledge and demand is there for a complete better option, like fully electric vehicles?
regarding the article:
leasing electric cars and then (when not needed anymore) taken back and shredded sounds like a very familiar story to me (who killed the electric car?).
Lets hope that this time it works better and by 2020, we have 35% electric cars in the western world. NL is working on it.
Electric cars change everything. Anybody can easily make electricity at home in a variety of ways and be truly independent. You can't really brew your own unleaded gas. If we can still be mobile, not be forced to pay a substantial amount of our incomes to pay for gasoline, and do it all without pumping copious amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere, then that's going to be a major change in the way the world works on oh so many levels.