Seat eMii Electric City Car Prototype Plugs Into Mobile World Congress

Seat have followed in the footsteps of mother-brand Volkswagen by introducing an all-electric version of the Mii.

Dubbed the eMii and based on its German cousin, the e-Up!, the zero-emission city car is being referred to as a prototype by the company’s officials, who pulled the covers off it at the Mobile World Congress, in Barcelona, Spain.

“What we see on the stand is the car that will allow us to test the operation of electrical technology in shared use vehicles. This does not mean that this is going to be our first electric car, but it is the ideal vehicle for carrying out these tests in Barcelona“, said the brand’s President, Luca de Meo.

Powering the new Seat eMii is an electric motor that generates 81 horsepower and 210 Nm (155 lb-ft) of torque, according to Autocar, quoting the automaker. This allows it to reach 100 km/h (62 mph) from a standstill in 11.3 seconds – more than a second faster than the e-Up!, and up to a top speed of 80 mph (129 km/h).

Charging its batteries takes 9 hours using a household plug, and once completed, the eMii will offer an estimated km (100 miles) of range. Moreover, Seat says that plugging it into a public fast charger will fill the batteries up to 80 percent in just 30 minutes.

Workers at Seat’s new ‘Metropolis:Lab Barcelona’, created to develop new vehicle connectivity features, which will become operational this April, will get to test a fleet of 10 Seat eMiis around the Spanish city, as part of a local carsharing pilot project. The staff, which consists of approximately 1,000 people, will have the small EVs at their disposal, and will get to operate them using a digital key and their smartphones.

In addition to presenting the new Seat eMii prototype, the automaker also revealed the company’s vision of the future at the Mobile World Congress. Previewed by the Seat ID simulator, this is a technology that forms new interactions “between the car, the user and their environment”.

It also features a predictive assistant that “helps drivers optimize their time, anticipating their needs and offering suggestions automatically according to the context”, and provides real-time traffic forecasts, en-route recommendations, and suggestions depending on the driver’s schedule.

“SEAT’s goal is to make progress and become a leader in technologies which enable us to offer an experience that is easy, connected and customized; technologies such as the ones we are presenting today and expect to include in our models beginning in 2018-2019“, Luca de Meo added.