Mini USA field trials for electric car

Gothamist point towards an offer from Mini USA to try out their new Mini E, the electric version of the car. This is not a hybrid, but a fully electric one, using new lithium-ion batteries.

They are after 500 people to trial the car for a year. But take a look at the conditions:

• You have to have a garage. Mini will pay for the installation of the box for the car to be plugged into, but if you have older wiring that needs an upgrade, you have to cover that.
• You have to live near the participating dealers and register the car in NY,, NJ or CA.
• You have to pay $850 a month as a lease of the car, which you don’t get to keep. BUT, there are no gas costs (just increased electricity costs, or collision insurance
• You have to bring the car in for scheduled maintenance – but it’s free
• You’re going to have to keep records, offer feedback and potentially have a recording device fitted to the car.

Unlike Gothamist, the cost for driving a new car on a lease seems in keeping to other costs I’ve seen and, as long as you meet the requirements, the benefits seem to be pretty good, especially if you are keen on helping move towards a new kind of car. Although not everyone agrees, as there is definitely a reaction against the cost, with some that as you’re doing them a favour, you should get it for free

It’s interesting that the FAQs address blog rumours:

Contrary to some rumors out there in the blogosphere, we’re not simply giving the vehicles to well-connected celebrities

I can’t find many of those posts, but I do find a lot of posts from people very, very excited about this, such as MPGomatic and this from Tronbikes who talks about the type of questions that are asked, such as your favourite inventor and how you are changing the world.

One of the reasons they chose LA and NY area for the trial is because they’re urban and you’re not necessarily going to be doing long journeys and would return home at the end of them to plug back in. Apparently the USA has no suitable charging stations – I wonder of the ones I see around London would work for the Mini, if there are standards, or if you have to build new ones for different car types.

Image by Rain Rabbit

The Mini site goes into a lot of detail about the offer, laying out all the issues and concerns. They have also got themselves a lot of coverage, both in the specialist car blogs and in the environmental, green blogs, which can only be positive for the brand image. Many of the blogs had been emailed with the news, to get the word out there and attract applicants, a nice use of social media PR.

I wonder how many of the 500 will do an online journal of the trial or if they will be allowed to. Keeping ongoing coverage of the trial going could be essential in driving sales when a production version does come out, a huge body of online information for when some one is doing the research about their next car to buy.