BMW prepares an electric Mini Cooper

Those staggeringly high numbers at the gas pumps got you down? Well, then you just may be especially interested in BMW’s latest brainchild, their remake of the Mini Cooper. Over the next 18 months, BMW plans to use several hundred of their Mini’s to test electric powertrains. They haven’t leaked much detail-wise, regarding motors or batteries; although they say details will will be forthcoming by the end of the year.

However, the plans to test are just that…tests. They don’t plan to roll them out onto the assembly line for consumer purchase any time soon. Finally jumping on the environmentally-friendly bandwagon that the other Big Two German car makers, Volkswagen and Daimler, are already on, BMW is now committing to testing completely electric vehicles, but not quite ready to take the plunge to actually market them. As for hybrid cars that use a traditional gasoline engine combined with an electric motor, they should arrive “at the end of next year,” a company spokesperson for BWM was quoted as saying.