Mini Countryman C Exclusive - long-term review

This month the Mini has sent me on a bit of an adventure – not a real adventure (no need for me to engage Trail mode) but rather an exploration through the fuel supplies of the UK, Europe, hell, even the rest of the world.

It started when I questioned the sign on the inside of the fuel filler flap highlighting suitable fuel blends. It said the Mini could run on E5 (super unleaded), E10 (bog standard petrol sold on all forecourts across the UK) and also on E25. Yes, E25. Hands up anyone who has seen that for sale on a UK fuel station forecourt... it turns out that would be none of you, because E25 is not sold in the UK.

It’s a mixture of petrol and ethanol (ethanol is an alcohol-based fuel produced from the fermenting plants) just like the E5 and E10 we are accustomed to seeing here, but it contains up to 25 per cent ethanol. Which sounds a lot, doesn’t it? Surely it’d be dodgy or harmful to run your car on that? Well, as luck would have it – luck and plenty of research from carmakers, truck makers and clever boffin chemists – it turns out that, actually, it’d be absolutely fine. And the Mini is designed to run on it.

C2H5OH, or ethanol to its friends, has been mixed with petrol in the UK since 2021, when E10 fuel first appeared on our forecourts. The government said this change to a higher percentage of ethanol “could cut transport CO2 emissions by 750,000 tonnes a year – the equivalent of taking 350,000 cars off the road, or all the cars in North Yorkshire”. Whether it has or not is up for debate, but surely there is not one person out there who thinks less pollution is a bad thing.

The really good news is that most cars made after 2000 and all cars manufactured after 2011 are compatible with E10, meaning it’s only really classic cars that’ll need to religiously fill up with E5 (or use a fuel additive). So, the question is, why stop at E10? Especially when there’s a socking huge sign on the Mini fuel filler flap saying it can run on E25. The simple fact is we won’t see E25 fuel here until the government decides we will.

But should you go on holiday to Sweden, you would be able to fill up with E25. Finding it elsewhere is unlikely. Unless you go to Brazil, where it is readily available, but that’s a hell of a ferry journey. (Interestingly, as an aside, ethanol fuel blends differ due to individual legislation in different countries. Another factor that’s taken into consideration is the supply and availability of ethanol producing crops in said countries. So Brazil, which has acres of sugarcane, runs higher ethanol petrol blends, and even uses 100 per cent ethanol in some trucks and cars. Meanwhile America, another heavy user of ethanol fuel, uses its huge number of maize crops to create its ethanol blended petrol.)

And speaking of journeys, the Mini has been on a few trips of its own of late. These have highlighted several things. 1) the Mini has excellent road holding, 2) the warnings that appear in the head-up display for “Confident driving in unfamiliar curves” stop coming up after a few hundred unfamiliar curves have been driven, and 3) the Mini has hit the heady heights of 00.0mpg. All good things.