This is the new electric Mini Cooper!

A lot is happening at Mini. It comes with various new models and they all get an electric powertrain. Mini is coming this year with a new generation of Countryman that is in the showroom with regular petrol engines, plug-in hybrid powertrains and as an EV. Aceman is on the roll for 2025, a compact SUV under the Countryman that even only gets electric powertrains. Big small news comes in the form of a successor to the current three and five-door hatchbacks. In these photos you may see the most important variant: the completely new electric Mini Cooper!

Mini Cooper

Wait a second. Mini Cooper? That’s a performance, isn’t it? Certainly. But soon Cooper will actually be a model name. The current three and five-door hatchbacks are being succeeded by a model series called Cooper. The first photos of what could be the new three-door hatchback surfaced as early as December 2021 and this extensive set of new plates shows that three-door Mini Cooper even better. The copy snapped during filming in Los Angeles is just a Mini Cooper, but directly the fully electric variant of it. The question is whether it will be called Mini Cooper SE again like the current one. After all, only Cooper S is written on the rear of the blue hatchback, but the lack of exhaust tailpipes most likely indicates that this is the electric variant.

Especially when viewed from behind, the Mini Cooper has a completely different appearance.

Completely new, yet recognizable

The new Mini Cooper is therefore the first with fully electric powertrains on the market. The versions with combustion engines will follow a few months later. The new Mini Cooper is immediately recognizable as such, just look at the design of the windows, the B-pillars hidden behind glass and the way in which the roof seems ‘imposed’. Still, a lot is changing. Particularly at the rear. We see stubborn, more or less triangular taillights that are visually tied together by means of a black strip containing the model name. The light signature is reminiscent of that of the Union Jack. Just like the tank flap of the current three-door, the tailgate is located slightly above the rear right wheel arch. The rear window seems to be a lot flatter than on the current hatchback and the rear spoiler placed above the rear window is much longer to obscure that somewhat. The C-pillar is concealed in a vertical section that runs down from the rear spoiler, giving the Cooper a significantly longer rear side window.

Recognizably different and yet completely new.

There are more striking details. For example, we have door handles partially recessed into the doors, relatively angular instead of almost round side mirrors and wheel arch edges without black plastic trim. The current Mini hatchbacks are characterized by their black plastic wheel arch edges and round side mirrors. With its larger round LED headlights – including two horizontal LED stripes – and narrower, higher grille, the new Cooper seems to be watching the world with some amazement. Don’t blame him. It is striking that the front bumper was furthermore free from extra slots, holes or other types of decoration.

Specifications

Mini will only reveal the Coope later this year, so for now we have to make do with the information that recently came out via the English Autocar. Luckily that was a lot. For example, we know that the new Mini Cooper will have a longer wheelbase than the current three-door, while the car length remains virtually unchanged at 3.82.

The electric Mini Cooper would have a range of at least 385 kilometers. That means that it goes considerably further than the current Mini Cooper SE, which squeezes 234 kilometers from its 32.6 kWh battery. There should even be engines that get twice the range of the existing Cooper SE. So count on the arrival of a power source that kicks it up to a driving range of more than 470 kilometers. In addition to a 184 hp version, there would also be a 218 hp version and there was already talk of the arrival of a sporty electric Mini Cooper JCW (John Cooper Works).

Mini will soon produce the electric Cooper in China. The flavors with combustion engines see the light of day in Oxford, England. There will also be a five-door hatchback, but as far as we know, it will not be available with an electric powertrain. After all, Mini will soon have the Paceman and the new electric Countryman for that.