BMW is planning to plug into the demand for environmentally friendly cars with a new electrically-powered MINI.

Due to be officially unveiled at this month’s Los Angeles Auto Show, 500 MINI Es will be shipped from the Oxford plant to California, New York and New Jersey for testing.

The cars will be on a one-year lease after which they will be returned to the BMW Group’s engineering fleet where they will be subjected to comparative tests.

Based on the current MINI hatch, the car will initially be available as a two-seater – the space normally taken by rear passengers is reserved for its lithium-ion batteries.

The MINI E’s 204bhp electric motor delivers power to the front wheels via a single-stage helical gearbox.

This powers it to 62 mph in 8.5 seconds and on to an electronically-limited top speed of 95 mph.

The batteries will give the car a range of up to 150 miles. A garage mounted wallbox, should fully recharge them in two-and-a-half hours.

To distinguish the MINI E its coachwork features a combination of metallic Dark Silver on all panels but the roof, which is clad in Pure Silver with a logo in Interchange Yellow, depicting a stylised power plug in the shape of an E.

The symbol appears in smaller dimensions on the front and back, the charger port lid, the dashboard trim, and on the door jamb.

Inside, the central gauge and battery level indicator are fitted behind the wheel of the MINI E where they replace the MINI’s rev counter.

BMW says that a small number of electric MINIs will be made available for testing in Europe in 2009 prior to a production model (which could be a MINI or a separate BMW model) being built in 2010.