Weeks after officially unveiling its all-electric Countryman in Germany, MINI has brought the EV overseas for its North American debut. In correlation with Climate Week in New York City, MINI has debuted the new Countryman alongside parent company BMW Group ahead of initial US deliveries set for next year.
The MINI Countryman is a subcompact SUV that currently sits as the automaker’s largest model, although it’s easily the smallest SUV in its respective segment. Initially debuting in 2010, the Countryman has seen a facelift as well as a second-generation refresh in 2017.
Until recently, the subcompact SUV was only offered as in gasoline and diesel models, despite MINI vowing to become an entirely electric brand with new EV models like the Cooper SE and the upcoming Aceman.
However, the BMW sub-brand took a major step toward an all-electric lineup, with the 2024 Countryman Electric debuting on September 1, 2023, at IAA Mobility in Germany. Advertised as being longer and higher than any other MINI before it, the third-generation Countryman now comes all-electric and will be available in the US next year.
Before then, however, MINI brought its new subcompact SUV across the pond to showcase it during Climate Week NYC. Check it out.
MINI’s new Countryman Electric makes its way to the US
Following the world premiere to kick off the month, MINI is providing an encore with the US debut of the Countryman Electric at Newlab in the Brooklyn Navy Yard. The event featured panels led by URBAN-X – a platform created by MINI in 2016 that partners with startups to develop technology solutions that help enable a more sustainable planet.
MINI describes the third-generation Countryman as an “evolution” of its largest vehicle and a clear step toward its goal of becoming an all-electric brand by the end of the decade. As we learned at IAA Mobility, the 2024 Countryman Electric is now 4,433 mm long, 1,843 mm wide, and 1,656 mm high and features a wheelbase that has been increased to 2,692 mm.
When it arrives, the all-electric subcompact SUV will come available in two trims:
MINI Countryman E
Output: 150 kW/204 hp
Torque: 250 Nm
Range: 462 km (287 miles) (provisional estimate)
0-100 km/h (0-62 mph): 8.6 seconds
Top speed: 170 km/h (106 mph)
MINI Countryman SE ALL4
Output: 230 kW/313 hp
Torque: 494 Nm
Range: 433 km (269 miles) (provisional estimate)
0-100 km/h (0-62 mph): 5.6 seconds
Top speed: 180 km/h (111 mph)
There’s no word yet on pricing in any market, let alone in the US, but BMW Group did share that the 2024 Countryman Electric will be the first MINI built in Germany, a distance from EV production being set up in the UK, where the aforementioned Cooper SE and Aceman will be manufactured.
We are sure to learn more later next year as the new Countryman is expected to reach US consumers in the fall of 2024.
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The US battery energy storage market added 5,597 megawatt hours (MWh) in the second quarter of 2023, a new quarterly record.
The grid-scale segment of the industry drove the market with a record-breaking 5,109 MWh in Q2, beating the previous record in Q4 2021 by 5%, according to Wood Mackenzie and the American Clean Power Association’s (ACP) latest US Energy Storage Monitor report.
The grid-scale segment achieved 172% growth quarter-over-quarter. California was No. 1 among states with the most grid-scale energy storage installations, with 738 MW and a 49% share of installed capacity.
Wood Mackenzie projects the grid-scale segment to be the main driver of the market in its five-year forecast from 2023-27, accounting for 83% of total installations, or 55 gigawatts (GW).
ACP’s VP of research and analytics, John Hensley, said:
The energy storage market is on pace for a record year, as utilities and larger power users increasingly turn to storage to enhance the grid and improve reliability.
The market is on pace to nearly double annual installations despite supply chain challenges and interconnection delays, and will continue to grow quickly in coming years.
Community, commercial, and industrial (CCI) installations, at 107 MWh, were higher than any quarter in 2022 but couldn’t keep pace with the huge spike in Q1 installations, resulting in a 53% quarterly decline. However, the segment is still up 25% year-over-year.
Residential storage saw its second-straight quarter of decline at 381.2 MWh, behind Q1’s 388.2 MWh. California saw the biggest decline, decreasing 17% quarter-over-quarter and 37% year-over-year.
Vanessa Witte, senior analyst with Wood Mackenzie’s energy storage team, said, “We still project strong growth for the residential segment in our five-year outlook, reaching a total of 8 GW in 2027. However, the CCI segment continues to fail to meet growth projections and we have downgraded its five-year growth forecast by 28% to 3 GW.”
On Friday, the US Department of Energy (DOE) announced up to $325 million for 15 projects across 17 states and one tribal nation to accelerate the development of long-duration energy storage (LDES) technologies. The DOE has set a goal to reduce the cost of LDES by 90% by 2030.
Photo: Jupiter Power;Graphs: US Energy Storage Monitor Q3 2023 | American Clean Power Association, Wood Mackenzie
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Tesla has released an update with progress on its Optimus humanoid robot with a video that almost looks like CGI.
Optimus, also known as Tesla Bot, has not been taken seriously by many outside of the more hardcore Tesla fans, and for good reasons.
When it was first announced, it seemed to be a half-baked idea from CEO Elon Musk with a dancer disguised as a robot for visual aid. It also didn’t help that the demo at Tesla AI Day last year was less than impressive.
At the time, Tesla had a very early prototype that didn’t look like much. It was barely able to walk around and wave at the crowd. That was about it.
At the time, Tesla showed several more prototypes that all looked more advanced and started to perform actually useful tasks.
Tesla has now released a new update on Optimus with a video showcasing the ability of the robot to sort objects autonomously:
Like the latest versions of Full Self-Driving, Tesla also notes that Optimus is now being trained with neural nets end-to-end.
The video shows that Tesla is again making progress with the Tesla bot, which looks more refined in this update. The mechanics look more stable with a prototype balancing on one foot.
The video even looks CGI at times, but everything points to Tesla actually having those working prototypes around its offices.
In a previous update on Optimus, Tesla CEO Elon Musk claimed that the “Optimus stuff is extremely underrated.” The CEO said that the demand could be as high as 10 to 20 billion units.
He went as far as “confidently predicting” that Optimus will account for “a majority of Tesla’s long-term value.”
There’s no clear timeline for bringing the product to market, but Tesla is expected to first use it in its own operations.
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