Mini Cooper SE Iconic & Overcoming Range Anxiety

December 4, 2020

Mini Cooper SE Iconic & Overcoming Range Anxiety

Bri­an Tram­pler proves that you don’t need to sac­ri­fice choos­ing your dream car over get­ting an elec­tric vehi­cle. Some­times, you can get an elec­tric ver­sion of the car you want! For Bri­an, that was the Mini Coop­er which also comes in an elec­tric ver­sion. Bri­an pur­chased his Mini Coop­er SE Icon­ic on April 2, 2020 from the Schomp MINI deal­er­ship in High­lands Ranch, Col­orado. He took advan­tage of the $4,000 (2020) state tax cred­it and the $7,500 fed­er­al tax cred­it, mak­ing his car the low­est cost brand new EV on the mar­ket, and $20,000 cheap­er than some gas-pow­ered cars! He’s dri­ven his car almost every day since and has des­ig­nat­ed it as his “pri­ma­ry around town car,” due to its afford­abil­i­ty with charg­ing costs com­pared to gas expens­es, its con­ve­nience, and its fun factor.

Bri­an loves this car because it dri­ves exact­ly as a gas-pow­ered Mini does, but with­out any of the harm­ful emis­sions or gas costs. It has the exact same body and fea­tures aside from the inter­nal com­bus­tion engine, and shares an elec­tric dri­ve sys­tem with the BMW i3. Bri­an has test dri­ven many Mini’s in the past and was get­ting ready to pur­chase one a few years ago, but when Mini announced that there would be an elec­tric ver­sion, he opt­ed to wait for the elec­tric car to be released. His Mini Coop­er SE is fun to dri­ve, com­pact, has all the same stan­dard safe­ty fea­tures as oth­er non-elec­tric Mini’s do, includ­ing Active Brakes, Dynam­ic Sta­bil­i­ty Con­trol, Cor­ner­ing Brake Con­trol, Head-Up Dis­play, Adap­tive Cruise Con­trol, Crash Sen­sor Sys­tem, and a Rollover Pro­tec­tion Bar. It’s also equipped with seat warm­ers, which makes it warm dur­ing the winter.

Before his Mini, Bri­an was dri­ving a Toy­ota Prius. The biggest dif­fer­ence between the two are main­te­nance costs and the bat­ter­ies of the cars. While the Prius has an elec­tric bat­tery, it is still a hybrid, mean­ing that Bri­an still had to get more main­te­nance done for the car, like oil changes. With his Mini Coop­er EV, he won’t have to go in for main­te­nance until the end of next year for small­er, more afford­able touchups. The Mini Coop­er EV is com­plete­ly bat­tery-elec­tric, so Bri­an nev­er has to pay for gas. He charges at home with a Lev­el 2 charg­er that goes from 0 to 100% in 4 hours.

We also spoke with Bri­an about range anx­i­ety, the fear that a vehi­cle has insuf­fi­cient range to reach its des­ti­na­tion. Some EV dri­vers or prospec­tive EV own­ers may be con­cerned about range anx­i­ety when the bat­tery charge is low because charg­ing your car may not be as acces­si­ble as fill­ing up at a gas sta­tion. When asked about range anx­i­ety, Bri­an stat­ed nev­er hav­ing expe­ri­enced it, even though his car gets an aver­age range of 120 miles, which is on the low­er range of elec­tric vehi­cles. With advanced plan­ning, Bri­an has dri­ven to Breck­en­ridge and back from the Den­ver Met­ro­pol­i­tan area. He’s also dri­ven many back canyon roads and made 100+ mile road trips with charg­ing only at his des­ti­na­tion. He’s also used DC fast charg­ers on his trips, which can get an 80% charge in half an hour. Bri­an rec­om­mends plan­ning your trip if you know you’ll be dri­ving long dis­tances and remain­ing knowl­edge­able and real­is­tic about your car’s range. In addi­tion, uti­lize Charge­Point to find free charg­ing sta­tions on the way!



Recent Posts

Earth Month 2024 Event Recap

Earth Month 2024 Event Recap

We believe every month is Earth Month, and April is no different! Throughout April, many cities and organizations hosted a variety of Earth Day celebrations across the state of Colorado. Drive Electric Colorado attended 13 events throughout the month, serving as a...

[/et_pb_column]

Take the pledge to make your next car electric!