Mini Cooper Electric review

The Mini Cooper Electric range is slightly difficult to get your head round – first you choose your powertrain. The E has the lesser powered 182bhp motor and smaller 36.6kWh battery and starts at £30,000. The SE comes with 215bhp, a larger 49.2kWh battery and starts at £34,500.

Each of those can be had Classic, Exclusive or Sport trim. You 16in wheels on the Classic, 17s on Essential and 18in alloys on the Sport, as well as a variety of body kits and interior styling treatments. The uplifts in these trims are the same whether you're in an E or SE – Exclusive is £2,200 more than Classic, and Sport is an extra £1,300 over Exclusive.

The JCW hot hatch model sits by itself at the top of the range at £39,000. It's on 18in alloys and gets a bespoke body kit and racier interior. Naturally.

What about the kit?

There are two upgrade packages available on the Cooper Electric – if you buy an E, Level 1 is £2k and Level 2 is another £4k. But if you go for the SE, Level 1 is included and Level 2 drops to £2k. Confuzzled yet?

There’s a mystical Level 3 package that’s only available on SE Exclusive cars and above, and that costs £4.5k. It’s ridiculous to try and get your head round, but that’s numberwang.

Level 1 brings heated front seats, keyless entry, LED headlights, head-up display and wireless phone charging. Level 2 brings a panoramic sunroof, fancier windows that filter out some of the sun and a Harmon Kardon sound system. Level 3 has self-parking tech and augmented reality satnav tech that shows you a video of where you’re driving but with arrows and that.

Which one should I go for?

The bigger battery seems like a no brainer, and for the sake of the ride we’d probably for the basic Mini Cooper SE Classic model. The John Cooper Works is a fun attempt at an electric hot hatch, but when an Abarth A290 is less money and a Renault 5 less again? Hmm.