Mini Countryman Electric long-term test

The car Mini Countryman Electric Exclusive Run by Chris Haining, sub-editor

Why it’s here To find out whether Mini's electric family SUV has what it takes as a comfortable, versatile daily workhorse 

Needs to Handle a long motorway commute without stopping to recharge; be at home in the great outdoors as it is in the urban jungle

Mileage 5125 List price £44,580 Target Price £43,700 Price as tested £49,600 Official range 275 miles Test range 242 miles 

8 January 2025 – Are we having fun yet?

Unleash the streamers, get the balloons out and strike up the band, my Mini Countryman Electric wants to get the party started. In fact, from the moment you jump in, like an over-enthusiastic redcoat at a holiday camp, it demands that you have fun. Hi-de-hi indeed.

It’s appropriate, really, because fun has been the name of the Mini’s game since the model’s birth back in 1959. Marc Bolan, Kate Moss, Twiggy and countless other Mini-owning celebrities would never have chosen Issigonis’s baby if it had been dour and miserable. That said, the 2014-2024 generation of BMW-sired Mini (one of which I had as a company car a few years ago) wasn’t quite as much fun to drive as its demeanour led you to believe.

Now, being the family SUV of the Mini range, the Countryman doesn’t seem as naturally suited to driver entertainment as its lower, lighter Mini Cooper hatch stablemate, but it does just as much to put you in the mood when you get behind the wheel. Starting with, well, starting.

To rouse any current Mini from its slumber, you turn a virtual key on the centre console. Every time I do this, I put aside the irony that the car has keyless opening and keyless go – but makes you turn a virtual key. I put it aside because – in my 21 year old BMW 5 Series and my wife’s 29 year-old Peugeot – the turning of a key is a wonderful connection to the fun I may be about to have.

And then, when you want to ensure that the drive you get is as spirited as it can be, you prod the Experience toggle to engage the Mini’s equivalent of a Sport mode – the suggestively named Go-Kart mode. You even get a little celebratory “wahey” through the speakers, the central dial turns into a vast monochrome speedometer, and the ambient lighting goes red. 

All this would be for nothing if the Countryman was dull to drive, so it’s worth rejoicing that this electric version really isn’t.

While my E model doesn’t have as much power as the twin-motor, four-wheel drive S E, its 201bhp is hardly limp. And the fact that it all passes through the front wheels isn’t the recipe for hopeless, uncouth wheelspin it sounds, even when the road is damp or greasy. In fact, on my local country roads, it puts its power down very effectively, eliciting the occasional naughty chirrup from an outside front tyre when I push hard out of a corner.

And that’s what raises it above the Mini Cooper I had those years ago. While that car felt perky enough at first, and stayed nicely upright in bends, it reached its limit of cornering grip disappointingly early, and that rather put a damper on the fun.

My Countryman feels that little bit more planted and secure across country; even at entirely responsible speeds. And, despite being so much taller and bulkier, I don’t think it leans any more noticeably, either.

Like that holiday redcoat, then, it doesn't just rope you into the fun, it makes sure you come out smiling.

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