It appears that another automaker is planning to phase out its internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicle production in the near future. MINI, a BMW-owned brand, announced recently that it will go fully-electric by 2030. By 2025, it will introduce its last fossil fuel vehicle.
The BMW Group is currently transitioning from making fuel-burning vehicles to full electrification, and MINI is no exception to that policy. At the 2021 BMW Annual Conference, BMW's CEO Oliver Zipse declared that 2030 will be the year that MINI will stop selling new ICE vehicles. MINI's final model of internal combustion engine vehicle will be launched in 2025, which will symbolize the end of the fuel burning vehicle era for MINI.
If this plan is successfully executed, MINI's pace of electrification will progress faster than the rest of the BMW Group. By 2027, more than half of the new car sales for MINI might be electric vehicles.
For now, there is only one purely-electric vehicle model in MINI's product portfolio: the MINI Cooper SE. The 4 door version of this model will soon be announced. As for MINI's next electric vehicle model, it is predicted to be launched in 2023. MINI is currently working in its joint venture with the GWM group in China to develop a whole new chassis for electric vehicles only.
MINI's next new pure electric vehicle model will be the MINI Countryman. This small-sized crossover car is expected to come in multiple versions, including the ICE, HEV, and EV versions. They will be made separately in China and Germany.
The electrification trend for the traditional automakers has already become quite clear. For brands that have a lower market share, the burden of transitioning towards electrification is generally quite small. Thus, they have a tendency to be much more transparent about their decision to end the production of their new fuel-burning vehicles. Among the major tier-1 automakers, only Ford appears to be upfront about its future electrification plans. The rest of the tier-1 automakers are relatively more reserved, although it is really just a matter of time before they eventually move on to making only electric vehicles.
Unlike the mainstream car models, the final fuel-burning car models of some of the industry's niche brands might actually be worthy of collecting.
(Source：BMW)
