Mini Aceman EV concept brings bold design and range shake-up

“This is classic Mini in the sense of the very short front and rear overhangs, but we have a very different side elevation. There is much more muscle in the sides.”

The clean, almost fuselage-like sides have been replaced by surfaces that are more clearly stamped and industrial. BMW said: “This ‘edginess’ signifies a progressive interpretation of the robustness and versatility characteristic of a crossover model.”

Also gone are the prominent chrome door handles and the triangular panel between the front wheel arch and front door.

Heilmer’s team has reduced the Aceman’s front-end design to a bare minimum. The Mini’s large, chrome-rimmed headlights have been greatly reduced visually and the brand’s traditional ‘face’ is now defined by an LED outline. The Mini grille has donated its outside edge as a very minimalist reminder of the brand’s roots.

“This car feels robust, but it is not huge. The new Countryman will have more boot space,” said Heilmer. “The shoulder on the car is a result of the aerodynamic performance needed for an electric vehicle.

“The tailgate spoiler and the way the rear of the glasshouse narrows was also driven by aerodynamics, as was the wheel design.”

The car also has a glazed roof with no strengthening bars, something that might be made possible on the production car by using the battery pack as a structural part of the chassis.

This glass roof also gives a clear view of an especially neat feature on the concept: a roof rack whose structure, when mounted on the Aceman’s diagonal roof bars, references the Union Jack. Heilmer said the BMW board was interested in making this conceptual flourish a production reality.

The Union Jack theme appears throughout the car: as a brace behind the minimalist dashboard, stamped into the wheel-arch mouldings and designed into the Aceman’s rear light clusters. Heilmer said this graphic is “popular all around the world”. 

While the Aceman exterior is a big departure from the Mini norm, the interior is a complete break from what has come before but, Heilmer argues, it is much more philosophically in tune with the austere Sir Alec Issigonis-designed original.

“This is pretty much the [production] interior,” Heilmer said of the Aceman’s spacey and bare cabin. The dashboard has been reduced to a single circular OLED touchscreen with a small toggle bar beneath it.

“This is the same user interface as the [2023] three-door. There’s no controller and the display is much cleaner. It’s a touchscreen with pop-up support. You have to swipe to change the temperature,” Heilmer told Autocar.

“The toggle bar has five elements, like in the original Mini,” he added. One of the toggles acts as the transmission shifter and one switches between drive modes. Another is the parking brake.

Because the Aceman uses a bespoke EV platform, the interior is far more open and spacious than today’s five-door hatch and Clubman. The dashboard volume especially has been greatly reduced, as has the steering wheel’s bulk.

“There’s more cabin space, especially in the front, as we have been able to push the HVAC [heating and ventilation pack] forward because there’s no conventional engine under the bonnet,” said Heilmer. The dash is covered in knitted textiles, but it’s not yet known if this will make it to the final production model.

On the subject of more ecologically sound materials in production, Heilmer said leather is likely to be replaced by the latest incarnation of leatherette, which, he explained, is now pretty much indistinguishable from the real leather used in today’s cars. “Leatherette is the future. It is better quality and customers cannot tell,” he said.

The move to declutter and pare back interior volumes has resulted in more useful door pockets and a centre console area that is now nearly completely empty. The centre console storage has been dropped and the central armrest swapped for one sited on the side of the seat.

“We’ve had so many requests for somewhere to store a bag, so now it can fit between the front seats. And having the armrest in the seat is more flexible for the customer,” said Heilmer.

“Chrome is not good [ecologically],” he said, so it has been eliminated entirely in the cabin and the exterior. As brightwork was such a major part of the aesthetic of the original and BMW Minis, it is perhaps this change that will have the greatest impact on the way people will view the new Mini family.

Heilmer acknowledged this: “The Aceman is not retro or cute and we can’t stand still, in design terms. But I also think that this car keeps our roots.”

Q&A: Oliver Heilmer, head of design, Mini