BMW has opened the online application book for trial leasing of twenty prototype MINI Es. It looks like a long wait for a similar project down under.
Participants will lease a car for six months from December this year at £330 a month. The price has been brought down from £550 by grants from Britain's Technology Strategy Board -- the government agency set up to promote such projects across the UK.
The lease fee covers VAT (the British equivalent of our GST), insurance and maintenance costs, including servicing and technical assistance by BMW 'flying doctors' working out of dealers within the research area.
Drivers will cover the cost of charging. MINI estimates a full recharge will cost from around £1.50 off-peak to something still under £4.00 using peak daytime power.
Charging the E's lithium-ion battery pack from empty on the 240V grid will take from around 4.5 hours (32A) to 10 hours (13A).
BMW has run similar research projects in North America and Germany, and plans to run a second round of the British one in 2010. Local BMW spokesman Tim James says while the company's Australian arm is keen to get hold of an evaluation car, it harbours no plans to run a similar trial program at this point.
"Obviously we'd love one for local evaluation -- we've already requested one. But they're looking at Europe first, then the US. So it's all a bit up in the air down this end of the globe."
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