No MINI electric car will be built at the company's Oxford plant in the UK for the time being.

The BMW Group has decided to indefinitely put on hold its plans to produce electric MINI models at its British plant in Oxford, England. The company had originally intended to begin producing two electric models of the brand at this plant from 2026: the three-door MINI Cooper and the compact crossover MINI Aceman, with the aim of producing exclusively electric models from 2030.

However, the current situation of the electric vehicle market appears to have forced the company to readjust its strategy for the coming years, as many other manufacturers have also done.

The company’s initial plans have been shelved indefinitely. While the combustion-engine versions of the new generation Cooper, presented at the IAA 2023, have already been rolling off the assembly line at the Oxford plant since last year, the electric versions will not follow the same path for the time being.

There was no other option

The company itself has justified this decision by the growing uncertainty facing the automotive industry, which has forced it to review the planning initially established for the production of the electric versions of several of the brand’s models.

For this reason, the work to adapt the plant for the production of electric models has been halted, although other improvements, such as those related to logistics, will continue. This readjustment of the company’s plans has also forced the BMW Group to reject a £60 million subsidy offered by the British government to promote the production of electric models at this English plant specifically.

As a result, the electric MINI Cooper will initially be produced only in China, in collaboration with Great Wall, and therefore all units reaching the European market will be imported and will have to bear the special import tariffs set by the European Union, except in the United Kingdom, obviously. For its part, the Aceman, launched in the Chinese market in 2024 as the first fully electric MINI, will also be produced exclusively in that Asian country, while only the combustion-engine versions will be produced in Europe for the time being.

Technical specifications of this car

CrossoverMINI Aceman9 versions · from 32,440 €