Alpine A290 vs MINI Cooper

The Alpine A290 costs £7,840 more than the MINI Cooper. For that premium it adds 44 miles more WLTP range, 25 kW faster peak rapid charging and 116 litres more boot space. On EVcarsguide's combined category scores, the MINI Cooper comes out ahead overall.

The MINI Cooper is £7,840 cheaper to buy. The MINI Cooper is cheaper to charge, roughly £144 a year versus £184 for the Alpine A290, at 8,000 miles on an off-peak home tariff. Add 5 years of charging and the MINI Cooper comes out roughly £8,040 cheaper overall. These figures cover list price and home charging only - insurance, servicing, tyres and depreciation will move the real total.

EVcarsguide estimates a real-world motorway range of about 155 miles for the Alpine A290 and 158 miles for the MINI Cooper - effectively matched, and both well below their WLTP figures because sustained high speed is the hardest case for an EV. Both rapid-charge to 80% in a similar time, around 28-30 minutes.

The MINI Cooper is the easier car for tight UK car parks: it is 67 mm narrower than the Alpine A290. In a standard 2,400 mm bay that leaves about 644 mm of total clearance for the MINI Cooper and about 577 mm of total clearance for the Alpine A290.

Over a 8-year ownership window EVcarsguide's degradation model projects roughly 84% battery health for the Alpine A290 and 84% for the MINI Cooper. That is close enough that capacity loss should not decide between them. Both use NMC-type cells, so for daily use keep the charge limit near 80% to slow degradation.