The MINI Cooper S is a small car with big charisma
The first example of the latest generation MINI I drove was the Countryman, and as much as the family car impressed with its relatively nimble driving characteristics, considering its bloated dimensions, it's too big to be considered a real MINI.
Its 4,444mm length is comparable to midsized SUVs like the Chery Tiggo 7 Pro and Toyota Corolla Cross.
In the 14-model MINI range that comprises convertibles, five-door hatches and crossovers, it's the three-door hatchback that best exemplifies the spirit of the original 1960s Mini.
Like the groundbreaking original designed by Alec Issigonis, the latest three-door MINI is compact, cute as a button, and runs circles around the many top-heavy SUVs that are increasingly dominating the roadways.
Priced at R649,395, the Cooper S three-door hatch embodies the charismatic simplicity of the latest fifth-generation MINI, which brings a minimalist design and digital innovations.
It isn't just a MINI hatchback with two fewer doors. With a length of 3,876mm the tiny three-door doesn't offer family practicality and loses a lot of cabin and boot space to the 4,036mm five-door MINI hatch.
Even small children will struggle to squeeze into the three-door's rear seat unless you adjust the front seats as far as they'll go forward. It's best to look at this as a two-person car, with a back seat that serves as extra luggage space. The tiny 210 l boot expands to a useful 725 l when you flip down the backrests.
The car is instantly recognisable as a MINI with its doe-eyed headlamps and 'floating' roof, but the design has been touched up with a new octagonal grille and horizontal LED daytime running lights. There are three selectable light signatures for the daytime running lights and the matrix rear lights.
Inside, the car is all about modern minimalism with its giant round OLED display and two-tone textile dashboard. As part of the MINI Experience Modes, two projector units beam various illuminated graphics onto the dashboard. A personal photo can be set as the display background via the MINI app.
A dinner plate-sized OLED touchscreen houses all the infotainment controls in large and legible fonts. The digital interface is generally user friendly, though I would have preferred quick-access physical buttons for the climate control system.
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TimesLIVE
12-06-2025
- TimesLIVE
The MINI Cooper S is a small car with big charisma
The first example of the latest generation MINI I drove was the Countryman, and as much as the family car impressed with its relatively nimble driving characteristics, considering its bloated dimensions, it's too big to be considered a real MINI. Its 4,444mm length is comparable to midsized SUVs like the Chery Tiggo 7 Pro and Toyota Corolla Cross. In the 14-model MINI range that comprises convertibles, five-door hatches and crossovers, it's the three-door hatchback that best exemplifies the spirit of the original 1960s Mini. Like the groundbreaking original designed by Alec Issigonis, the latest three-door MINI is compact, cute as a button, and runs circles around the many top-heavy SUVs that are increasingly dominating the roadways. Priced at R649,395, the Cooper S three-door hatch embodies the charismatic simplicity of the latest fifth-generation MINI, which brings a minimalist design and digital innovations. It isn't just a MINI hatchback with two fewer doors. With a length of 3,876mm the tiny three-door doesn't offer family practicality and loses a lot of cabin and boot space to the 4,036mm five-door MINI hatch. Even small children will struggle to squeeze into the three-door's rear seat unless you adjust the front seats as far as they'll go forward. It's best to look at this as a two-person car, with a back seat that serves as extra luggage space. The tiny 210 l boot expands to a useful 725 l when you flip down the backrests. The car is instantly recognisable as a MINI with its doe-eyed headlamps and 'floating' roof, but the design has been touched up with a new octagonal grille and horizontal LED daytime running lights. There are three selectable light signatures for the daytime running lights and the matrix rear lights. Inside, the car is all about modern minimalism with its giant round OLED display and two-tone textile dashboard. As part of the MINI Experience Modes, two projector units beam various illuminated graphics onto the dashboard. A personal photo can be set as the display background via the MINI app. A dinner plate-sized OLED touchscreen houses all the infotainment controls in large and legible fonts. The digital interface is generally user friendly, though I would have preferred quick-access physical buttons for the climate control system.
TimesLIVE
09-06-2025
- TimesLIVE
How does a MINI Countryman SE All4 handle a 465km round trip?
Long-distance touring with an electric vehicle can be daunting. Not only is there the prospect of 'range anxiety' to deal with, there is also the notion of 'charger anxiety', as a seasoned consultant on the subject explained to me. The fear is that even though you might have enough juice to get from one point to the next, your intended charging destination could be occupied or offline. Load-shedding is usually the cause for the latter. Luckily, GridCars, which operates most of the charging facilities in South Africa, has app functionality which informs users what the status of their chosen facility is. Last weekend myself and our long-term MINI Countryman SE embarked on our first-ever cross-province drive: from Joburg to Wolmaransstad and back — the furthest I had ever travelled in an electric vehicle, ever. Happily I can report that neither of the earlier-mentioned 'anxieties' wracked my brain. The whole journey was as smooth as one could hope for, popping my long-distance electric trip cherry. I hear you asking, why Wolmaransstad? And where is that anyway? The tiny town lies about 100km outside Potchefstroom in North West province. It's an agricultural stronghold, but it's also a strategic location for an off-grid solar charging facility on the N12 national route. There is space for six vehicles to charge, and it can handle commercial EVs up to eight tons. Operated by the firm Zero Carbon Charge, the Wolmaransstad facility is the first in a planned network of 120 stations, built within 150km of each other. The idea is to enable stress-free, cross-country mobility for electric car drivers. Getting registered to use the Zero Carbon Charge platform proved simple: download an app, link a card for payment, then scan a QR code at the charging infrastructure to get going. My day began at 6.30am. The MINI had been fully-charged using our office AC plug point and the vehicle indicated a range of about 380km. The biggest range I have yet seen on the MINI is 406km, after using a 30kW DC outlet. The range claimed by the manufacturer is 433km. MINI states the average consumption of the Countryman SE as 17kWh/100km. I met up with two other industry colleagues in their electric cars at a spot on Jan Smuts Avenue 7km away. From there, it was a 229km stretch to Wolmaransstad, using the N2 and N12. 'Stretch' might be overselling it though, because with the indicated range of the MINI Countryman, the experience turned out to be a doddle. As a precautionary measure we decided to stop in Potchefstroom (halfway to Wolmaransstad), should anyone require a charge at the GridCars facility at the Mooirivier Mall. By the time we arrived there, my battery life was at 70%, with electricity consumption around 14kWh/100km. It would have been even better, but at some point during the journey I decided to crank up my heater and heated steering wheel. It was a frosty morning. Nobody needed to charge up n Potchefstroom, so onward we trekked. Crucial to mention is that my driving style was not overly conservative. All I did was stick to the speed limits and modulate the accelerator gently on take-offs. No over-the-top hyper-miling techniques were deployed: just a real-world driving style, keeping with the ebb and flow of traffic. The vehicle was kept in the dedicated Green setting, adopting a mapping profile that prioritises range over performance. If you drive the car in the most extreme mode of conservation, it caps permitted speed to 90km/h. By the time we arrived at the solar set-up in Wolmaransstad, the Countryman's battery life was 43%, with consumption in the region of 15kWh/100km. My next move was to plug one of the fast-chargers into the 'tank' of the MINI and initiate the job. The peak output of the charger fluctuated between 30kW to a peak of 75kW, which enabled a juice-up from 43% to 100% in about 90 minutes. We passed the time in the on-site Farm Flair restaurant, stocked with everything from biltong to koeksisters. In all, the vehicle's battery took 37.38kWh to achieve fully-charged status (the total battery size is 66.5kWh); costing R342.03, which works out to R9.15 per kWh. A full battery from empty would cost about R608. The total trip distance from Johannesburg to Wolmaransstad and back was 465km, so in effect I paid R1.35 per km. How does the electric Countryman compare to a petrol-powered one in terms of cost versus range? The current inland price per litre for 95 unleaded is R21.40 and the 2.0l Countryman S has a 54l tank size, working out to about R1,155. With a claimed consumption of 6.5l/100km you could expect a range in the region of 608km — roughly R1.89 per km. The savings in fuel bills represented by the electric model would translate into savings over the long-term, but the difference in initial outlay is also a factor that might influence your purchasing decision. The Countryman SE costs R1,086,000 while the regular S is R810,774. The next item on the agenda for our MINI? The customary Gerotek shakedown. LONG-TERM UPDATE 3 | MINI Countryman SE ALL4 ODOMETER ON DELIVERY: 4,621km PRAISES: Strong range on a full-charge makes lengthier journeys possible. GRIPES: Central armrest has no storage bin.
The Citizen
07-06-2025
- The Citizen
All-electric Mini Cooper SE rises above weight and price issues
Go-Kart experience, complete with fake sound and light show, turns hatch into a toy car. The new all-electric Mini Cooper SE does an excellent job of living up to the brand's ethos. Instant torque and enjoyable handling deliver the kind of fun experience the iconic Cooper S 3-door is known for. While the Mini Cooper SE is a lot bigger and more advanced than its Cooper S Mk1 forefather from the 1960s, there is number that is remarkably similar despite being separated by six decades on their birth certificates. Quite astonishingly, the power to weight ratio difference between the models are only 10kW/ton. The Mini Cooper SE has a power to weight ratio of 98kW/ton compared to the Mk1's 88kW/ton. Mini Cooper S an icon The Mk1 that famously won the Monte Carlo rally in the 1960s before and negotiated drainpipes and stairways in the original The Italian Job film was fitted with a 1 275cc engine kicking out a princely 57kW. But, a kerb weight of only 645kg gave it a very respectable power to weight ratio in a game where 100kW/ton was once the golden benchmark. The Mini Cooper SE's outputs of 160kW/330Nm produced by a single electric motor is actually more than its internal combustion sibling's 150kW/300Nm. But electric cars have a major weakness and that is the weight of its batteries, which in the SE's case is a 54.2-kWh lithium-ion battery pack. Its kerb weight of 1 620kg therefore stand out like a sore tooth against the petrol engine model's 1 285kg. ALSO READ: New Mini Cooper S stays true to peppy and fun 'hot hatch' roots The resulting power to weight ratio of 98kW/ton drags the SE way down from the 116kW/ton ratio of its petrol-powered sibling. This leads right into the other sticky point. The price. The Mini Cooper SE costs R802 000, a R155 605 premium over the R646 395 Cooper S 3-door. As before, the Mini Cooper SE's taillights resemble the Union Jack. Picture: Charl Bosch Political shenanigans In a first world country with zero carbon emission targets, various incentives and subsidies are in place to ensure electric vehicle (EV) ownership is a viable option compared to cars powered by internal combustion engines. But we live at the southern tip of Africa ruled by a government that is likely reading the White Paper on proposed future policies of new energy vehicles upside down. Until they figure this thing out and relax taxation on EVs, cars like the Mini Cooper SE will stay expensive unfortunately. And even though charging at home will be much cheaper than filling a stank with petrol, you'll have to drive at least 120 000km before breaking even. This is a real pity. And by no fault of Mini or its owners BMW, even though GWM builds the electric version in China. The carmaker has come a long way since the days of the BMW i3, which compared the Mini Cooper SE, tragically lacked a soul. Knockout colour The SE is a great blend of modern technology with a fair bit of retro-ness which ranges from the driving straight through to the styling. The tester The Citizen Motoring drove in Sunny Side yellow paint with black roof and mirror caps was a real head-turner. Like the electric-only Mini Aceman, the Cooper SE's cabin is very simplistic. A variety of hard-wearing recycled fabrics feature all over the cabin clad in all sorts of funky colour combinations. The 9.4-inch OLED roundel infotainment system which controls most functions takes centre stage on the dashboard. Making up for the absence of an instrument cluster is a head-up display. What we liked is that there is still physical switchgear for some functions like side mirror adjustments and volume control. A key-like start switch features between a toggle switch gear selector and Experience selector, the latter becoming our go-to plaything. Go-Kart experience Instead of run-of-the-mill driving modes, the Experience mode selector allows you choose a mode like Vivid or Green that not only adjusts the driving dynamics, but also the look and feel of the cockpit in terms of screen design and ambient lightning. In our case, the preferred option was the Go-Kart Experience. The 9.4-inch roundel is clear and easy to use. Picture: Charl Bosch Flipping the switch into Go-Kart mode gets Mini Cooper SE as excited as the driver, with a loud 'woo hoo!' glaring from the speakers as soon as its activated. It unleashed a lightning quick throttle response, firms up an already stiff suspension and makes the feedback on the torque steering a lot more accentuated for a sportier feel. Better yet, it activates a sound akin to an arcade racing game. At might sound a tad to artificial at first, but once you become addicted it's hard to disengage Go-Kart. ALSO READ: Petrol and EV confirmed as BMW prices all-new Mini Cooper On smooth surfaces with little feedback from the suspension you don't really notice the SE's weigh too much. But on less than perfect roads you do get a feeling for the mass you are carrying as the firm suspension starts bouncing around a bit. That, and the fact that we suffered a tyre burst hitting a pothole forced us to abandon any plans of trying to emulate the 1960s icon and drive it down a staircase or two. Mini Cooper SE passes the test Like any fossil fuel-driven car, the harder you press the accelerator, the higher the consumption. Going about your business in a civilised manner will ensure power consumption of less than 20kWh which should get you just over 300km of range. But play too hard and you'll need to stop a lot more for charging. But Mini has made provisions for that too, as the Cooper SE supports DC charging of up to 95kW. Political shenanigans burdening the Mini Cooper SE aside, the hatch does an excellent job of upkeeping what Mini is within an electric persona. If more soulless electric cars can adopt personalities like this, maybe the future won't be all that boring.
