• Narrow and cramped interior
• Boot is a good shape and bigger than rivals’
• Three-door only, so rear access is poor

How much space is there?

You can only have the MINI Electric as a three-door hatch, which means it isn’t the most practical option on the market. If you regularly need to carry passengers, you might be better served by the Renault Zoe or the Peugeot e-208, as they both have five doors.

Thankfully, the front of the MINI Electric is no less spacious inside than a petrol-powered three-door MINI Hatch, which is a good thing because of how tight the cabin is. It looks roomy on camera, but the brand’s designers have implemented a few design choices that make the MINI Electric quite a cramped place to be if you’re tall.

Take the door cards. They look great, but that upper trim piece next to the door handles sticks out too far into the cabin, robbing front occupants of valuable elbow room. Every time you move to rest your arm on the top of the door, you’ll bash your funny bone into the trim on the way past.

The central armrest isn’t particularly well-placed, either. It gets in the way of your elbows if you’re having a spirited drive down a country lane and, because it’s so narrow, the driver and front passenger will be constantly fighting over its custody.

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The story is worse in the rear. The MINI Electric is a strict four-seater and the rear bench isn’t particularly comfortable as the brand’s engineers have had to shave some padding off the seat base to make room for the battery pack underneath. Even so, the base still sits a little higher than on regular MINIs reducing headroom. This is particularly noticeable with the headroom-zapping twin sunroofs. The cut-outs in the front seat backs are also nowhere near the rear occupants’ knees, limiting space further.

Boot space and storage

The MINI Electric’s boot is quite pokey, but it’s no smaller than the petrol-powered model. You get 211 litres of space with the rear seats up and 731 litres with the bench folded completely flat. That make it more spacious than the Fiat 500 Electric, but considerably smaller than the Vauxhall Corsa Electric.

It’s a good square shape, which means loading it with shopping and small cases is easy. There’s also a hidden space under the boot board, which is handy for storing the car’s charging cables. However, with the rear seats folded flat, there’s a good three-inch lip between the boot floor and the seat back, which makes transporting larger items a chore.

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Is it easy to park?

Yes. The MINI Electric isn’t a big car, which means it’s a doddle to steer into parking spaces. Visibility is good, and you can see where the front wings end from the driver’s seat without craning your neck, so it’s easy to keep tabs on the car’s corners.

If that isn’t enough, you also get rear parking sensors and a rear-view camera as standard on the most basic version of the car. Front parking sensors and park assist are fitted as standard from the mid-range Level 3 model and up, which adds an extra safety net against parking scrapes.

Safety

• The MINI Electric hasn’t been crash tested…
• … but the petrol model scored four stars
• EV features extra stiffening to protect batteries

The MINI Electric hasn’t yet been crash tested by Euro NCAP, but we expect it would perform similarly to the petrol-powered MINI Hatch in an accident, as both are based on the same platform and feature a comparable level of standard safety equipment.

When the standard MINI Hatch was crash tested back in 2014, it scored four stars. That’s good, but it’s worth bearing in mind that Euro NCAP has since tightened up its safety regulations and, because the MINI Hatch hasn’t been retested under the more stringent rules, its rating has expired.

That makes it tricky to compare the MINI Hatch’s four-star safety rating with the Honda e’s four-star score from 2020. Chances are the newer Honda will be slightly safer in an accident, as it has a more comprehensive level of driver assistance technology.

But that’s not to say the MINI Electric is a dial-up modem lost in the digital era. In addition to the parking assistance technology mentioned above, buyers also get automatic high-beam, traffic sign recognition and autonomous emergency braking. The most basic Level 2 model also comes as standard with adaptive cruise control, which is more than can be said for the Peugeot e-208.

MINI also fitted its electric hatchback with some extra bracing to protect the battery pack from being punctured and causing a fire in the event of an accident.

Watch the MINI Hatch’s crash test video