It has been all hands to the pump at Mini recently with new Cooper and Countryman, electric Aceman, and now an electric minibike. Excuse me, what was that?
Turns out Mini’s CEO, Stefanie Wurst, took a spin on BMW Motorrad’s latest electric scooter, the CE 02. She commented on Linked In that it was thrilling.
Quizzed further about whether Mini might be considering an electric single-tracker, the Mini boss commented “I think this is interesting because it’s urban mobility. If we were to do something I would look into the family first…If I have interest in our markets, this is something I would consider.”
If a motorbike gets the go-ahead, it will be Mini design boss Oliver Heilmer and his team who would have to ‘Mini-aturise’ it.
Turns out the design team has already done some of the spade work in this area. “Let’s do some bikes just in order to understand whether it works” said Heilmer. “We tried little motorbikes as far as we can,” said Heilmer.
“While it’s not our area of expertise we can create something [with two wheels] that looks like a Mini.”
The nuts and bolts of such a bike will likely mirror BMW Motorrad’s CE 02. That has 11kW, and is an alternative to a 125cc petrol-powered bike. The CE-02 can accelerate from 0-50km/h in three seconds, and tops out around 90km/h. Battery range is around 100km, and a 20 to 80 per cent recharge is accomplished in under two hours. A Mini using such components could potentially undercut the BMW on price.
This isn’t the first time Mini has dabbled in the two-wheeled area. The Brit created the Scooter E Concept in 2010 for the Paris Motor Show.
