The first premium electric vehicle to challenge the $30,000 price point will arrive in the U.S. early next year.

The 2020 Mini Cooper SE, the brand's first serious series-production electric vehicle, will start at $30,750 when it arrives in U.S. stores in early March. The price includes an $850 shipping fee.

As a zero-emission vehicle, the Cooper SE will be eligible for state and federal EV tax credits that would knock the price down to as low as $17,900, Mini said.

U.S. pricing of the Cooper SE will make "premium electric mobility more accessible to a broader range of customers," Mini of the Americas Vice President Michael Peyton said in a statement.

The Mini brand could use those customers.

U.S. sales peaked at 66,502 in 2013. Mini declared that year that it would sell more than 100,000 vehicles per year here by 2020. But last year, U.S. sales fell 7.3 percent to 43,684.

Sales through September of this year fell 19 percent to 27,753.

Poor sales have dented dealer profitability. That has prompted parent BMW Group to let Mini dealers downsize their stores or move operations into their BMW locations, sharing backroom expenses to help defray operating costs and real-estate overhead.