► Mini confirms first fully electric model
► Will be based on three-door Hatch
► In a charging bay near you from 2019
It’s no secret that the Mini brand’s engineers have been working on a fully electric model.
Now it’s been confirmed the ’leccy Mini will be a derivative of the three-door Mini Hatch, the bread-and-butter model in the company’s range. It will go into production in 2019, alongside the existing petrol and diesel Mini hatch models.
The car’s battery-electric drivetrain will be manufactured in Germany at BMW’s Dingolfing and Landshut plants in Bavaria – but it will subsequently assembled on the production line in Oxford, the Mini Hatch’s main production centre, a development which has helped quell concerns that Mini production could shift to mainland Europe following Britain’s decision to leave the European Union.
This won’t quite be the first battery Mini – in 2008 the pure-electric Mini E was trialled in small numbers by corporate and private customers as a data-gathering exercise.
Earlier in 2017, Mini launched a plug-in hybrid version of its Countryman SUV model, produced by a partner company in the Netherlands – click here to read CAR’s review of the Countryman Cooper S E All4.
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