MINI SE Electric: Hood scoop or nah?

That's amazing. I never minded the scoop, but after seeing your SE I'm questioning my opinion.

 

Well done! What a journey you took to get your ride dialed in. I admire your vision and persistence.

 

Only one more decal to add...

 

"I am really happy. No, I am really, really happy!" -- that's what counts. You'll feel good every time you see it. Well done.

 

A poor ICE-powered MINI driver reported on the Facebook MINI forum that his hood scoop flew off on the expressway and he saw it crushed by a truck behind him. I have made sure that my MINI Cooper SE will never endanger other drivers this way.

 

Did they say if they had also blacked out the scoop like the other things they blacked out? Could've been a bad install.

And sorry but I love the scoop. I didn't know how much I did until I saw them side by side

 

No reason to be sorry. MINI understood what you wanted better than they did me. I just watched a rerun of the Wheelers & Dealers show on the Motor Trend Channel where they refurbished a 2004 MINI Cooper S with a supercharger. On that first edition of the BMW MINI the hood scoop was fully functional. The scoop became associated with the higher performance that the base MINI Cooper didn't offer. In later generations of the MINI, even after the scoop was no longer needed to provide that additional power, MINI retained the scoop because it had become an integral part of what made a MINI look fast. I actually agree a MINI with a scoop looks more powerful.

My problem is that a hood scoop is inextricably linked to the support of an internal combustion engine, which my MINI doesn't have. It seems like a relic from a bygone day to me.

No, the scoop-loss victim didn't venture any explanation for the ornament's ejection.

 

Interestingly I saw a post about a hood scoop being stolen from another car in a facebook group. I had no idea people tried to do that kind of thing. If it was specialized maybe it was damaged too from someone trying to steal but got scooped. Or who knows. I just leave it to Tesla for things flying off on highways lol

I have a tiny Jeremy Clarkson attitude in me. I do like a little power so it might speak to my sporty side. Or it could be that my current Mini has it and I just am used to it. I have no idea. I am against the idea of swapping grille for the S type that I currently have though. I don't want to look that ICE like. I am still considering a chrome delete and making the grille turn black at a vinyl wrap shop though. I wouldn't change the scoop though.

 

I think the scoop space is just begging to be put to use, now that there's no more series of tiny explosions going on underneath it. Maybe augmented car noise (Jetson's car sound is my dream, it's perfectly suited for the Doppler Effect). Or maybe some sensor of some sort? Or a confetti cannon?

 

Red scanning light ala Kitt or a Cylon?

 

This!

 

Okay you had me sold at the confetti cannon but the Kitt light... decisions decisions....

 

Did testing show an increase in your range? Such an important part of the car for aero, I would think. That came out really nice. I may bust out the 3d printer and see what a “plug” for the hole does for economy, but it’ll never look as good as this ventless hood !

 

I had my scoopless hood installed as soon as the endless wait for my SE was over, so I had no way to compare before-and-after range. I'm confident the exorcism of the skeuomorphic ornament didn't increase drag, but I doubt it made enough of a difference to measure through daily driving. However, I smile in an obsessive-compulsive way every time I look at my expensive base MINI hood. My SE is perfect.

OTOH, because my aero-optimized Honda Clarity Plug-In Hybrid has slots that provide air-curtains for both the front and rear wheels, I believe the front-wheel air-curtain slots of the 2022 SE do contribute to the 2022's 4 extra miles of EPA range. Wheels are notoriously anti-aerodynamic.

 

The hood scoop is how the turbo gets cooled. After all, it does have the same kind or turbo as the Taycan Turbo S.

 

On a turbocharged car with a functional hood scoop, yes! But even on the turbocharged Cooper S, the hood scoop isn’t actually functional — it’s merely decorative.

The hood scoop was functional on the first-gen (R53) Cooper S with its supercharged engine, but not so on the current-gen (R56) turbocharged Cooper S.

That said, I like the hood scoop on my SE! (Shhh, don’t tell @insightman!* ) As functional as racing stripes, but I like those, too! (And wishing now that I’d done some custom stripes, as I’d seriously considered. And I still could, but probably won’t since I had a PPF put on the front and had the whole car ceramic coated.)

(*But I actually love that @insightman performed a hood scoopectomy on his SE, at considerable effort and expense. The more customization, the better! )

 

I guess I forgot the /s for sarcasm. The high end Porsche electric Tycan is called a Turbo even though there is no turbo at all.

 

From my experience the bonnet stripes go on over the PPF (not sure about ceramic coating, but I'd think so since isn't it basically a super wax?). When I had PPF added to my previous Hardtop (purchased used) they had to remove the stripes, and then offered to put new ones on after applying the PPF.

 

Except for the factory-striped Electric Collection and Resolute models, stripes are a personal appearance choice, which I endorse heartily. I learned from MINI's head of design that it was marketing who declared all S models must have scoops. As my world-class, most-important website has been illustrating for years, no pre-production visualization of the electric MINI Cooper had a scoop.