back	September 15, 2009 RSS

MINI E: patrolling the streets of New York

It's a novelty even for New York: the bustling US metropolis has long been accustomed to countless vehicles and yellow taxicabs on its streets, but the ten cars that recently began patrolling Manhattan, Queens, Bronx, Brooklyn and Staten Island are turning heads, even though you can barely hear them and certainly can't smell them. A fleet of ten MINI E models is on the lookout for such things as hazardous potholes, missing street signs or blocked drains. SCOUT (short for Street Conditions Observation Unit) is the name of the mobile squad sent out in the MINI E cars by the City of New York to check the streets. It's an acid test for the MINI electric car. The ten models in New York are part of a 500-strong fleet through which MINI aims to gather experience with its electric drive primarily in the USA, but also in cities like Berlin. A large pack of lithium-ion batteries provides the MINI E with output of 201 hp and a 0 to 100 km/h (62 mph) acceleration time of just 8.5 seconds. These runabouts with a yellow plug symbol on the roof have a range of 150 miles - more than enough for the SCOUT team whom mayor Michael Bloomberg has charged with making New York's streets safer. Read the full story by Tobias Moorstedt on New York's MINI E scouts in THE MINI INTERNATIONAL