The ICE MINI Countryman Will Continue Indefinitely – What It Means for MINI’s Future

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“ICE and combustion will never disappear. Never.” With that statement, BMW board member Jochen Goller made clear that petrol power isn’t going anywhere. And nowhere is that more relevant than at MINI. Once committed to ending the combustion cars by 2030, the brand has now done a 360 and it starts with the Countryman.

As we first reported last March, MINI isn’t just keeping the U25 alive — it’s preparing to launch an all-new ICE Countryman once this generation runs its course. Originally, MINI’s roadmap had the U25 Countryman bridging the gap until 2030, when the brand was expected to go all-electric. That plan has now changed. MINI will introduce a successor ICE Countryman around 2031, effectively committing to keeping combustion alive in its lineup indefinitely.

How the Countryman Will Evolve

The MINI Countryman will split into two distinctly different products under the skin. Much like the J01 and the F66 MINI Coopers, the Countryman will be offered as an EV on one platform, and with combustion power on another.

Model / Code	Powertrain	Platform	Start of Production	End of Production	Key Notes
U25 Countryman (ICE)	Petrol	FAAR (evolved UKL2)	11/23	06/31?	It’s likely MINI will stick to it’s planned life-cycle and simply introduce a new ICE model when production ends.
U25 Countryman SE ALL4 (EV)	Electric	FAAR-based EV	11/23	10/28	Intended to be a bridge EV model. Powertrain refresh scheduled for 03/26.
NE5 Countryman EV (Next Gen)	Electric	Neue Klasse (Gen6 EV)	11/28	10/36	All-new RWD EV withGen6 batteries based on the Neue Klasse platform
UXX Countryman (ICE)	Petrol	TBD	Early 2030s	TBD	It’s unclear what will underpin this new Countryman but we’d guess it will be a revised FAAR platform

BMW’s Three-Platform Strategy Explains the Shift

This evolution at MINI is directly tied to BMW Group’s decision to consolidate its lineup onto three architectures:

• Combustion-only platform: Entry-level ICE cars built for markets where EV adoption lags, including India, the Middle East, and Eastern Europe.
• Multi-energy platform: Flexible enough to carry petrol, hybrid, or EV drivetrains, underpinning global staples like the current Countryman.
• Neue Klasse EV platform: BMW’s clean-sheet EV architecture, debuting in 2025 with the next-generation iX3.

For MINI, that means a two-pronged Countryman strategy: the U25 Countryman (Petrol) running on the multi-energy platform now (FAAR), the NE5 Countryman EV arriving in 2028 on Neue Klasse, and a new ICE Countryman likely on an updated version of the FAAR platform.

The Takeaway

The phrase “indefinitely” is no accident. It’s the same language BMW’s leadership is now using to describe the future of combustion within the group. MINI’s decision to launch another ICE Countryman after 2030 cements the fact that petrol power is not a placeholder — it’s a permanent part of the brand’s strategy.

For MINI fans, this is both continuity and choice. The Countryman will embody two futures in parallel: one powered by Neue Klasse EV technology, the other by combustion. And that duality looks set to define MINI well into the next decade.

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