Exclusive Look at MINI’s Plans to Phase out Internal Combustion Models

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Choice. That’s been the core of BMW’s philosophy with EVs and that strategy is playing out with the J01 and F66 and soon with the U25 and the NE5. The only question is just how long the ICE (internal combustion) powered MINIs will be on the market? While nothing has been set in stone, we have some ideas.

The UK recently pushed back its ICE ban from 2030 to to 2035 due to public pressure and slow progress in charging infrastructure rollout. That will mirror Europe’s timetable as it looks to move into electrification as well. In the US there are currently nine states (following California’s lead) that will ban purely ICE sales while allowing limited plugin hybrid’s to be sold if they account for under 20% of a brand’s total volume. Oh and that PHEV needs to get at least 50 miles of range on electric.

What this means is that the western world is slowly putting similar timetables on when we’ll see the phase-out of ICE powered cars.

The ICE powered F66 MINI Cooper

MINI to Offer Both ICE and EV Models

The MINI Cooper

MINI (like BMW) is leading with a strategy of choice. That means we’ll see the brand offer ICE powered cars alongside all new EVs simultaneously. For MINI specifically this strategy will directly impact its FAAR (F66) and FAAR WE (U25) platforms. This also means some of these models will have unusually long lifespans.

As you can see below the F66 will technically have a short life-span but as we know, the F66 is a revised F56 which was introduced in 2013. That means the car and platform will be mostly unchanged until 2030. It’s almost hard to believe but this type of outlier in product planning is what happens when have a revolution such as electrification in the automotive industry.

What will be even more interesting to see is the all new J01 MINI Cooper EV being sold alongside revised car 10+ years older. MINI is going to great lengths to hide the fact that these cars only differentiation is the drivetrain as they will style the F66 inside and out to match the new J01. Will consumers notice? Will they care? We’ll know soon.

ICE MINI Models	Start of Production	End of Production
F66 MINI Cooper (ICE)
F66 MINI Cooper	03/2024	12/2030
F66 MINI Cooper S	03/2024	12/2030
F66 MINI Cooper JCW	03/2024*	12/2030
F65 MINI Cooper 5 Door	07/2024	12/2030
F65 MINI Cooper S 5 Door	07/2024	12/2030
F67 MINI Cooper Convertible	11/2024	12/2030
F67 MINI Cooper S Convertible	11/2024	12/2030
F67 MINI Cooper JCW Convertible	03/2025*	12/2030
U25 MINI Countryman (ICE)
U25 MINI Countryman C	11/2023	12/2030*
U25 MINI Countryman D	11/2023	12/2030*
U25 MINI Countryman S ALL4	11/2023	12/2030*
U25 MINI JCW ALL4	03/2024	12/2030*

This may change due to consumer demand.

The MINI Countryman

The U25 Countryman on the other hand will seemingly have a rather normal product lifecycle of 7 years – typical in the BMW world. However there’s an asterisk there. Now that the UK has moved back it’s ICE ban and other governments have similar timeframes, there’s a chance we could see the ICE powered U25 Countryman stay on sale for a bit longer if there’s demand.

The Countryman EV will be the complete opposite as MINI intends to kill it early to move that car to a bespoke electric platform from BMW called the NCAR (BMW’s codename for Neue Klasse). Why? The U25 Countryman is based on an updated FAAR platform (FAAR WE) and it was designed as a stop-gap of sorts. It can accommodate everything from an internal combustion power-plant to a plugin hybrid (which only BMW offers on this platform) to full electric. Because of this Swiss-army knife approach there are tradeoffs. For one the electric U25 MINI Countryman can’t pack as many battery cells as dedicated skateboard chassis EV can because it has to deal with structure built for internal combustion drivetrains. And there are many other trade-offs that have to be made to allow a single platform to work for so many drivetrain options. Because of this BMW intends to kill the U25 EV early in 2028 and launch the NE5 Countryman on this new, pure electric platform.

The ICE 2025 MINI Countryman JCW – Courtesy of MINI.de

The Neue Klasse (or NCAR as it’s known internally) will be BMW’s single platform that will underpin every future BMW and MINI across the range. Because of the highly variable nature of skateboard chassis, that means there will be foundational elements of the NCAR in everything from a MINI Countryman to a BMW X7.

The NE5 will then be alongside the U25 ICE for several years similar to MINI’s strategy with the J01 and the F66.

Of course MINI would love for that to not be the case as it’s quite expensive to produce multiple version of the same car. And it would appear they’re going to attempt to make the electric version of the U25 Countryman and the J01 a bit more appealing by giving us noticeably more power. For instance the 2025 Countryman SE (EV) will have more power and better straight-line performance than even the Countryman JCW (ICE). the J01 will follow suit as the Cooper SE will also have JCW levels of performance. In fact that’s one of the theories as to why MINI has not upped the power output of the F66 JCW which will remain at 231 hp.

The post Exclusive Look at MINI’s Plans to Phase out Internal Combustion Models first appeared on MotoringFile.

The post Exclusive Look at MINI’s Plans to Phase out Internal Combustion Models appeared first on MotoringFile.

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