Not every Mini is all that mini. The company isn’t confined by its name. Its largest model is getting larger for 2025. It’s also going electric.
Mini raised the curtain on the 2025 Mini Countryman at the 2023 Munich Motor Show. The new Countryman is electric (though we hear a gas-powered model is coming soon) and larger than ever.
Mini Cute Crossed With Crossover Rugged
The largest Mini is 5.1 inches longer, 2.4 inches taller, and 0.8 inches wider than before. It departs significantly from the minimalist look of other Mini products, with the usual rounded lines seeming capped off by flat plateaus in every direction.
Rugged is the SUV design trend of 2023, and this seems like Mini’s take on rugged. It’s as if Mini scientists crossed the new rounded, minimalist Mini Cooper with a slab-sided off-roader to produce a rugged Mini for a children’s cartoon. The look is equal parts whimsical and capable.
The daytime running lights – polygons here rather than the classic round Mini signature – include an optional feature that lets the owner toggle between several light signatures.
Simple, Expressive Cabin
Inside, the look is upscale minimalism.
It’s upscale in that the dashboard apes the body color and features sculptural tall, narrow vents. The body color effect wraps onto the door panels and fades to grey in a pixelated gradient as it moves toward the rear.
Unless you spring for the optional Mini Experience Modes, which brings a projector unit that uses the dashboard as a screen, letting it shine “in different patterns and colors with special light graphics, depending on the choice of experience mode.”
It’s minimalist, lacking even a driver’s instrument cluster or screen. An optional head-up display can take over some of their usual tasks.
One Display That Does Everything
Otherwise, owners get just one interface, designed to look classic but be ultra-modern and flexible. A round OLED touchscreen in the center of the dash handles all entertainment and information functions – even basic driving info like speed.
About 9.5 inches, it sounds small. But that’s only because traditional rectangular screens are measured on the diagonal. A circle of 9.5 inches is a lot of screen real estate.
The screen displays driving info at the top, climate control at its sides, and navigation and media in its center. Users control it with swipe gestures like a phone.
Or they can control it with voice commands. Saying “Hey, Mini” triggers the new Mini Intelligent Personal Assistant – like an Alexa for the car – which can handle most climate and entertainment functions. It uses artificial intelligence to learn your routines and predict them. For instance, Mini says it can learn to lower the window when you enter a parking garage so that you can grab the ticket.
Because Mini insists on cute wherever possible, drivers can choose to have the assistant appear on the screen as Spike, an animated bulldog.
Mini says the Countryman comes equipped for Level 2 driving assistance, so it should be capable of some hands-free driving on the highway as long as you’re ready to take over at any time.
All-Electric
Mini chose to unveil the Countryman as an electric vehicle (EV) at first, though rumors are gas-powered versions are coming soon.
EV versions will come in two trim levels. The Countryman E uses a single electric motor good for 204 horsepower and a range of 462 km (287 miles). That figure, however, is likely based on European testing. Tests by the U.S.’s EPA standards tend to result in much shorter reported ranges.
The SE ALL4 is, as the name suggests, all-wheel drive. A pair of electric motors combine for 313 hp and a range of 433 km (269 miles) on the European cycle.
The Countryman has always been an odd duck. Who seeks out the largest Mini? But it’s also survived into a third generation with its strange combination of cute Mini charm and usable crossover space. This latest version seems to lean into that ethos with almost exaggerated spunk. The look will likely work for long-time Mini fans with growing families. And the range – significantly longer than what the new Mini Cooper has to offer – will probably lure into the showroom some buyers who want that Mini charm but want more road-trip range between charges.
