It appears the Indian electric vehicle (EV) market is about to get populated quite quickly in the next couple of years. Just last year, Hyundai brought in the Kona Electric SUV while MG Motor announced the ZS EV SUV. Tata Motors, too, announced an all-electric version of its popular Nexon SUV a few days ago. Now though, we hear through the grapevine that BMW India could introduce the recently launched Mini Electric hatchback in the country sometime in 2021. The Mini Electric is expected to cost upwards of Rs 30 lakh when it goes on sale in India.
The Mini Electric, which is currently on sale in the US and UK, shares its powertrain with the BMW i3s electric hatchback. With its 32.6kWh lithium-ion battery, the Mini Electric should deliver a range of about 233 kilometres on a single charge. According to Mini’s data sheet for the UK, the Mini Electric puts out 184 horsepower and can go from 0 to 100 kilometres per hour in 7.3 seconds. The recently announced MG ZS EV, which is expected to go on sale shortly at Rs 22 lakh, claims to do the same in 8.5 seconds.
According to a recent report by Autocar India, Mini Vice President Francois Roca isn’t fully confident of bringing in electric models into the country because the public EV charging infrastructure on Indian roads is still limited, to say the least. “We need infrastructure. So when there will be very large infrastructure, it definitely makes sense to have the BEV in the Indian market. Today, I would say it can’t be that we have to be in India with the BEV to tick a box,” Roca said in a statement.
Depending on the type of charger, juicing up the Mini Electric could take between 36 minutes and 12 hours. Being a premium three-door mini-hatch, the Mini Electric is expected to come with a long list of features, including a 5.5-inch fully digital instrument cluster that displays speed and state of charge among other things. The EV is also expected to sport LED lighting all around, a 6.5-inch touchscreen unit on the centre console with support for Apple CarPlay, dual-zone climate control, multiple driving modes, two levels of power regeneration, and an electric parking brake.