The Mini E was a demonstration electric car developed by BMW as a conversion of its Mini Cooper car. The MINI E was developed for field trials and deployed in several countries, including the United States, Germany, UK, France, Japan and China. The field testing of the Mini E was part of BMW Project i, which was followed in January 2012 by a similar trial with the BMW ActiveE, and the last phase of project was the development of the BMW i3 urban electric car, that went into mass production in 2013. All Mini-E vehicles were equipped in the same way, similar to a standard Mini Cooper hatchback.