Mini to go electric

It's a plug-in electric car which will be previewed at the Los Angeles Motor Show ahead of sales of up to 500 cars in California through 2009.

There was no sign of the Mini volt in Paris yesterday, even though Mercedes-Benz had its electric Smart on show and up and running, but the car is definitely coming.

He says BMW wants to get electric experience as soon as possible, not just in its cars but also to test the various infrastructure challenges from how and where to plug-in - at home, at work, at a government charging station - to the acceptance range for customers.

"We want to see how practical it is. We need to see if charging it at home works . . . right through to the issues of living with it."

Robertson would not go into technical details on the electric Mini, not even the battery pack or range, but said everything would be obvious at LA in just over a month.