Ahead of the official premiere, more photos and the first technical data of the new Mini Cooper have appeared on the internet. This model is being produced in cooperation with the Chinese company Great Wall and will be available in EV and ICE versions.

The pictures show a blue Mini with a white painted roof, white exterior mirror caps, and also a white border around the ‘radiator grille’. The yellow-green ‘S’ of the sportier ‘Cooper S’ models can also be clearly seen here, indicating that this is the electric version. The front and side lines are clearly recognizable as a Mini.

The rear view is more striking because the electric Mini goes its own way here, particularly in the design of the tail lights. The electric minis will, in the future, mainly be built by Great Wall in China and thus no longer have anything to do with the familiar European plants in England and the Netherlands regarding production technology.

A few data

The website ‘Bimmertoday’ also mentions further data on the electric drive, but these have not yet been confirmed. The basic model is to be launched on the market as the Mini Cooper E and is to be relatively comparable with the current electric Mini in terms of technical data: 133 kW/181 hp of power and a 40 kWh battery, with a WLTP range of 320 kilometers.

The second electric model, named Mini Cooper SE, is supposed to rank above it, with 158 kW/215 hp of power, and a 54 kWh battery capacity, extending the range to 386 kilometers according to WLTP.

There are no new details on the battery cells used or the charging power yet. It is quite possible that two different cell chemistries are used. In the Funky Cat, for example, one of Great Walls’s own products, the 48 kWh battery (45,5 kWh net) uses LFP cells, while the large battery with 63,1 kWh gross and 59,3 kWh net uses NCM or NCA cell chemistry.

Two EVs in 2024

According to earlier information, the new electric Mini Cooper will be launched on the market in May 2024. Before that, production of the electric Mini Countryman will start in Leipzig (November 2023), which would mean that the BMW Group brand would launch two purely electric models in 2024. The market launch of the all-electric Aceman is planned for January 2025.

Apart from the two electric versions, there will also be versions with an internal combustion engine (ICE) of new Mini Hatchback. These petrol versions will be upgraded to follow closely the new look pictured here but will continue on today’s hardware with 1,5- and 2,0-litre engines and final assembly at Plant Oxford. It’s a neat way for BMW to bridge the gap during the electric switchover and hedge its bets.

One million

Meanwhile, the one millionth Mini Hatchback has come off the line at the Oxford plant, which also celebrates its 110th anniversary. The car is executed in British racing green and is an electric Cooper SE. He will be delivered to a Canadian customer.

There were doubts recently if the electric version of the future Mini would also be produced in Oxford, but the most recent rumors confirm that it will also be produced in Oxford as well as in China. In Born, the Netherlands, the Mini story is about to stop, they just received their last order for a limited production of electric Mini Convertibles, and that will be the end.