Mini to bring back the Paceman as an electric crossover model
The BMW brand Mini is planning a revival of the Paceman as an electric crossover for 2024. However, the name is the only thing the new Paceman will share with the combustion model built between 2013 and 2016.
The aforementioned combustion model was a small SUV coupé based on the Mini Countryman, but was only offered as a three-door model. The Paceman was discontinued again for the 2017 model change, and only the Countryman received a second generation – the third generation is currently in development.
The “new” Paceman, however, is to be a four-door model, as industry insider Georg Kacher writes in Car Magazine. According to this, the Mini Paceman will compete against models such as the Opel Mokka-e and the recently confirmed electric Puma from Ford. A big difference to the models mentioned: The Paceman will also be available with all-wheel-drive. In terms of battery and range, too, the Paceman would at least surpass the Mokka-e, if the information is correct: Kacher states a battery size of 60 kWh and a range of around 400 kilometres. There is no information on the Ford Puma yet. However, due to its relationship to the electric Transit Courier, an all-wheel-drive option is unlikely.
Kacher further speculates that it would “make sense” for Mini to use BMW’s fifth generation of electric drives. These are current-excited synchronous machines that manage without permanent magnets and rare earth metals. This generation of electric drives has been installed in all new electric BMWs since the iX3, for example in the i4, iX and also in the upcoming i7. Kacher does not yet speculate on performance data, but with two such motors for an all-wheel-drive the peak power would probably be very high. The front electric motor in the iX has an output of 190 kW and is classified as “M” in the construction kit. It is not known how powerful variants in “S” or “XS” (analogous to dress sizes) are.
It is also open on which platform the Paceman will be based. “We have the next five years buttoned up and, come 2030, Mini will be fully electric,” former Mini CEO Bernd Körber told Car Magazine. “We’ll use two architectures: a bespoke EV matrix developed in Munich but built in China; and a comprehensive evolution of our existing platform. A Mini is a Mini, no matter whether it’s battery or petrol-powered.”
Since the Paceman is to be “one of the derivatives of the next Mini family” according to Kacher, a close technical relationship to the “classic” Mini three-doors is obvious – and thus that the Paceman is based on the further development of the existing platform mentioned by Körber.
It is not clear from the report where the Paceman will be built. The former sister model Countryman will be built in the upcoming third-generation at BMW in Leipzig. As a battery-electric model, the Countryman will share technology with the BMW iX1.
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