There’s been a lot of talk about MINI moving to an all electric model line-up over the last year. MINI has even thrown some dates out; 2025 being the year the last new petrol powered MINI will be released and the “early” 2030s as the time period when MINI will stop selling petrol-powered cars altogether. But petrol-heads still have time. We’ve learned that MINI will release an entirely new generation of cars powered by internal combustion engines starting in late 2023.

MINI and parent company BMW have been talking a lot about choice when it comes to drivetrains. While BMW has created the CLAR platform capable of electric, hybrid and ICE in one package, MINI’s product strategy is a bit more complex. So to offer choice MINI is both collaborating with BMW and China’s Great Wall Motors on its next generation.

Next Generation MINIs
If you want a classic petrol powered JCW you likely have almost a decade before they’re gone.

As quickly as electrification is coming to the brand, MINI intends to still plans to offer conventional internal combustion engines in both its small car range and in at least one crossover – likely the next generation Countryman. As much as BMW wants to be aggressive in moving MINI to an all electric brand, this move is in response to the differing customer needs seen in North America and elsewhere. The result is that we should see the entire range of new MINIs as we know them today (sans the Clubman) with internal combustion engines offered as a standalone or part of a mild or plugin hybrid systems. Based on our sources that means we should see the last new MINI models with petrol power introduced in 2025 and have an end of production date around 2032.

The MINI Urbanaught may or may come to fruition. But a larger Crossover will.

The Next Generation MINI Timeline

In the next few years we should see a lot of new MINIs. The Countryman and another crossover should launch in 2022 and 2023 respectively. Then the all electric small MINIs co-developed with Great Wall should see the light of day around 2023 or 2024. These cars are being developed as a standalone product meant to sit slightly below (in size at least) the forthcoming petrol powered MINIs. It’s unclear when or if we’ll see them in North America.

The MINI Vision Net isn’t the shape of the next MINI but it does offer us to clues to it.

Finally around the same time we should see the next generation MINI hatch with a mild-hybrid internal combustion engine. This will form the basis of the four door hatch and convertible which will likely be the last new petrol powered MINI to debut in 2025.

But that doesn’t mean we won’t see more electric MINI models. We expect MINI to create an all electric Countryman and potentially a larger crossover as either full electric models after the initial launch based on BMW equivalents. This and other model electrification revisions will be key as MINI evolves to an all electric line-up in the early 2030s.