According to China Business News, BMW China said on October 16 that the Oxford plant will suspend the production of electric vehicles, but will not stop the production of MINI models. However, BMW China has not responded to whether the MINI electric car will only be produced in China.

Spotlight Automobile is a joint venture company previously established by BMW and Great Wall Motors. The total investment of the Spotlight Automobile production base project is about 5.1 billion yuan. The construction site is Zhangjiagang City, Jiangsu Province. It is planned to be completed in 2022. This is BMW’s first pure electric vehicle joint venture project in the world, with a planned production capacity of 160,000 vehicles per year. Great Wall Motor previously stated that the cooperation between the two parties is not only at the production level, but also includes joint research and development of pure electric vehicles in China’s new energy vehicle market. It is expected that future MINI pure electric vehicles and new products of Great Wall Motors will be put into production here.

In September this year, MINI Concept Aceman, the first pure electric urban crossover concept car of the MINI brand, was unveiled in Shanghai. In November last year, the MINI brand under the BMW Group announced that in 2023 MINI will produce two pure electric models in China. It is expected that by 2027, pure electric vehicles will account for 50% of MINI’s total global sales. BMW Group said that the Chinese market is becoming the fastest-growing market for MINI in the world, and China will become the focus of MINI’s global strategy.

According to the strategic plan previously released by the BMW Group, the last BMW MINI fuel vehicle will be launched in 2025. By 2030, all MINI models will be fully electric, and the MINI brand will also become a brand within the BMW Group. The first brand to achieve full electrification.

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On Thursday, local time, BMW Group Senior Vice President of Design Adrian Van Hooydonk and Oliver Heilmer, head of Mini Design, confirmed to members of the press that the next-generation Countryman will get an increase in size. On the other hand, the new Hardtop – the car that most people simply think of as the Mini Cooper – will shrink.

“The Mini Countryman should grow,” Heilme said, “and we do get a lot of feedback from the market saying that the Countryman is quite a good car, but it could be a little bit bigger.” Later, Heilmer added – “People need more space.”

It certainly seems to defy the whole point of Mini, but Van Hooydonk says that as vehicles in general get bigger, the company will always strive to offer cars that are as small as possible in that segment, “which is an ongoing struggle.

The good news is that it sounds like the next-generation Hardtop will be smaller than the current car – something we noticed when Mini released photos of its prototype last year. “In the hatchback, our achievement is really to make it smaller than its predecessor,” Heilmer said, “and that’s our biggest goal.”

Widening the bookshelf of the Mini lineup leaves more room for the middle, which bodes well for the Aceman. It also creates more breathing room for Mini’s other models, including the Clubman.

At this point, though, Van Hooydonk admits that the Aceman may have more potential than the Clubman as far as customer demand is concerned. The Aceman is said to be taller than the Clubman, but shorter and with a higher ride height. Nevertheless, Van Hooydonk said that only time will tell if the Clubman can hold on after the Aceman enters production in the next few years.

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