Mini Cooper Electric long-term test: report 9

The car Mini Cooper SE Exclusive Run by Eleanor Cooper, news writer

Why it’s here To find out if this cutesy small electric car is more than just a pretty face

Needs to Absorb the stress of morning stop-start commutes, shrug off pangs of range anxiety and slot into small parking spaces with ease

Mileage 3570 miles List price £32,105 Price as tested £34,655 Official range 247 miles Test range 200 miles

2 June 2026 – Small snags

Life with my Mini Cooper Electric has been mostly painless so far, but nothing in life is perfect, and I have run into some small snags over the past few months I’ve spent with it.

My Cooper SE handily comes equipped with John Cooper Works sports seats, which have additional bolstering to hold you in through tight corners. I’ve been able to test them out on longer journeys, and can confirm that they’re very comfortable. It does mean, though, that you have to work a little harder to get out of the car than you would with regular seats.

On top of that, these sports seats come with plenty of adjustment, which is great for someone like me, who is quite short and usually needs to move the seat to reach the pedals. The issue is that my Cooper SE’s front seats are both manually adjustable. I wish there was some electric adjustability like in the petrol Mini Cooper I ran a few months ago, but I swear it’s not because I’m lazy. Instead, it’s because I’ve found that the height adjustment lever of the driver’s seat sticks out on the right hand side, and it comes to quite a sharp hook at the end. 

As someone who wears baggy jeans most of the time, this has caused me to snag them on the end of the lever a number of times, to the point where some of the threads have ripped. In one instance, I was wearing a cheaper and thinner pair of jeans, and the lever ripped a full hole in them as I was getting out.

It means that I’ve had to take extra care getting out of the car to ensure I don’t have to get my sewing kit out at the end of the day. Maybe I need to chill out and take things more slowly, but when I told our used cars writer George about the issue, he agreed that the lever seems to stick out more than it should. It’s especially difficult to avoid if you’re in a tight parking spot and you can’t open the door very wide lest you hit the car next to you.

An inconveniently-placed lever might seem like a small issue, but good denim jeans don’t come cheap nowadays – and I’m not a very good seamstress.

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