Took my beloved mini se for the 2 year service. I spent a couple of hours there, much of the time talking to a sales rep while considering a Countryman. Based on our conversation the new electric Mini Cooper se version is not coming to the US. He looked on his dealer site and said there are two new SE's available in the US. He doesn't think any more will be coming. I was introduced to motoringfile.com There is an article stating the electric mini is dead in the US until they are once again manufactured in Great Britain. The article presents many reasons for this occurrence. The new electric Countryman will be coming to the US late 2024. Based on an article in Motorfile, the life of this model will be shortened from 7 of 5 years when a new electric model will be produced. Bottom line: check out motoringfile.com
CARS dot com is showing 420 new SE’s. I can offer no reasonable explanation as to the discrepancy. Sent from my iPhone using Inside EVs
The U25 MINI Countryman Electric is based on the BMW iX1, which is a huge 177 inches compared to your SE's 152 inches. Also, it weighs a whopping 4,600 lbs. The iX1 gets to 60 quicker (5.7 seconds vs 6.2 seconds) and goes double the SE's 114 miles on a charge. Those are all good things for some people, but there's a catch: Which one would you rather drive around a corner? By the time the U25 makes it to the US, BMW/MINI will have revealed their US plans for the J01 MINI Electric. Don't listen to any pessimistic speculations your dealer may offer. Any actual info that BMW/MINI tells dealers get will leak out to the Motoring File and this forum. Who knows? They may sell the Chinese J01 for a loss in the US until they start making them at Plant Oxford. If Ford can afford to lose $36,000 on every EV they make and sell in the US, then BMW/MINI can afford minimal or no profit on the J01 to keep the US engaged with the MINI Electric. They don't want to leave their dealers with the U25 as their only EV offering.
In my experience, the news hits Motoring File first. I talk to our sales manager fairly regularly and she reads MF for the latest news because they get no info from MINI in a timely manner.
Aside from MINI OS9, the 2025 Countryman SE is still using Gen5 technology so potential buyers should be aware of the resell hit for the 2026 BMW Neue Klasse (Gen6) transition.
Not everyone is able to write off their motor vehicle expenses. In America, you would have to become a car reviewer to write off a Ford F-150 Lightning or Rivian R1T.
Easy answer if it's a short commuter or weekend fun. There are some valid practicality issues with the range and size that the Countryman speaks to. It's why I am starting to let my eyes wander to U25 and elsewhere. The price becomes the real issue for me. ~$47k to start, probably way more once you get to a reasonable spec. At this size and price point we are talking about a lot of vehicles that are really similar. Some lighter, some more sporty, some more range - even some that do all three. To your point, with this physical form can it still feel like a "go kart?" If not they'll be leaning on the MINI brand department hard when a big part of the MINI magic is gone.
The new Mini Cooper SE is initially being made in China, so that's why it may not be coming to the US. But BMW have now (after some UK government grants) announced that the electric version will also be made in Oxford from 2025, so maybe that's when it will be shipped to the US.
That delay won't make MINI's dealers happy. I guess MINI hopes re-styling the F56 to look like a J01 will make customers forget there's no longer a sporty EV in the showroom. Unless VW brings their gen-2 eGolf to the US, customers looking for a small, sporty EV will just have to wait.
