British brand Mini, owned by the BMW Group, is preparing to take the electric car segment by storm with the Cooper SE. An official presentation of the novelty is expected soon, and on the eve of it, the British decided to show the capabilities of the car by towing a really heavy vehicle with its help - a wide-body aircraft.
The idea of towing an aircraft is actually not new: in 2014, a Volkswagen Touareg towed a Boeing 747 (with non-standard engines and it is not clear what modification), in 2017, Porsche set a Guinness record by towing a 285-ton Airbus A380, and last year to tow a brand new Boeing 787-900 weighing 143 tons was decided by Tesla with the Model X P100D electric car.
The pre-production MINI Cooper SE, of course, is inferior to all three of the above crossovers in terms of thrust-to-weight ratio, but this did not prevent it from pulling a 150-ton Boeing 777F liner (this is a cargo modification of the passenger version of the 777) at Frankfurt Airport. In the video, the British brand calls its electric car a muscle car, and indeed, not every car can cope with such a task.
According to rumors, a 184-horsepower electric motor from the BMW i3S will be located under the hood of the production car, the torque of which will be 270 Nm. A 44.2 kWh battery will provide the car with a range of 274 kilometers on the WLTP cycle.
Production of the Cooper SE, and this is official information, will begin in November this year at the plant in Oxford.
But as for the debut date, there is no information about this yet. But, judging by the exciting video, we don't have long to wait.
The new Mini electric car is ready to tow even Boeing-777F
