2025 Mini Aceman review

Mini has a new in-betweener in its electric vehicle (EV) range, and it reckons it’s ace… man. Okay, I’ll stop now.

The Mini Aceman is a new small crossover that slots between the Cooper 3-Door hatchback and the Countryman SUV in its electric lineup. It effectively replaces the Clubman wagon, which was a well-loved model up until its demise in 2024.

A light-sized five-door that’s equal parts hatch and SUV, this compact crossover is based on the same all-electric GWM co-developed Spotlight chassis architecture as the electric Cooper 3-Door. Beyond it having a second pair of doors, the Aceman is 221mm longer, 54mm taller, and it also offers an additional seat in the second row over the Cooper 3-Door.

At launch, Mini is offering two variants of the Aceman – the E Classic and SE Favoured. The former is already getting killed off, however, with the BMW-owned British small-car brand offering a discounted pricing deal on the Aceman E Classic at $51,990 drive-away while stocks last. Production of this model, along with the smaller Cooper E Classic, is set to wrap up this month.

In the coming months, however, the flagship Mini Aceman JCW E Favoured is set to arrive in Australia.

Although customer deliveries of this new Mini EV started last year, we got to sample the Aceman E Classic and Aceman SE Favoured trims at the national media launch earlier this month on Victoria’s Mornington Peninsula.

Is this the Goldilocks of the refreshed Mini range? Read along to find out.

How much does the Mini Aceman cost?

Mini is currently running a promotional drive-away pricing offer on the entry-level Aceman E Classic while stocks last.

To see how the Mini Aceman stacks up against its rivals, use our comparison tool

What is the Mini Aceman like on the inside?

Hopping in, you can immediately tell you’re in a new Mini as there’s the prominent round OLED touchscreen infotainment system and interesting knitted textile finishes on the dashboard and door cards.

Given the Aceman is based on the same architecture as the electric Cooper 3-Door, their interiors are very similar. You’ll only start to notice major differences once you head to the second row.

Depending on which Aceman trim level you opt for, there are different looks. In the entry-level E Classic, there is a light headliner with black and blue cloth/leatherette upholstery, whereas in the SE Favoured there is a darker anthracite headliner with Dark Petrol leatherette.

The front seats in the entry-level E Classic variant are manually adjustable, which is surprising at this price point but isn’t the end of the world as I was able to find my desired seating position easily.

With the SE Favoured, on the other hand, the front seats offer electric adjustment, which I appreciated because you could alter the seat base tilt and support my thighs better. It also offers an active massage function, which was fun to play around with.

While the seats in both versions of the Aceman are comfortable and offer a nice amount of support, the fixed head restraints in the SE Favoured jut out a little too much, causing my head to bounce off it a few times. I wish they were pushed back a bit.

Up front, there’s enough space to get comfortable, though if you bring your feet toward the seat, the battery pack impacts foot space. Your knees can also rub on the coarse knitted textile on the door card, which almost gave me what felt like carpet burn after a longer drive.

Ahead of the driver is a super chunky steering wheel. It’s almost a little too thick to hold nicely, but there are nice spots to rest your hands at nine and three o’clock, plus the wheel is wrapped in a soft leatherette.

All the buttons and scroll wheels are physical and have a clicky feedback, which is satisfying. I do wish there was a scroll wheel to do the volume rather than having to spam buttons, though.

Behind this there’s no proper digital instrument cluster, and instead there’s only a head-up display. It doesn’t project onto the windscreen like in many other cars, and instead projects onto a flip-up polariser, which feels a little old-school.

Despite this, the head-up display still looks good. The content that’s shown is bright and has vivid colours, and depending on the drive mode you have selected, it’ll change the layout and colouring.

Moving across, there’s the aforementioned centrepiece of all new Mini cabins, the 9.4-inch OLED touchscreen infotainment system. The display itself looks so bright and crisp, and given it’s an OLED panel the colours really pop.

It seems there’s enough processing power to swipe around menus and open new apps quickly, though it can sometimes lag when you first turn the car on. This is something that I’ve experienced in Minis I’ve driven previously.

The native infotainment user interface takes a while to get your head around as there are a lot of menus hidden away and you need to use the screen for adjusting the climate controls, but you soon get used to navigating around. Taking the round touchscreen out of the equation, the Mini’s system is laid out similarly to a BMW.

As standard, there are both wired and wireless forms of Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. While this sounds very commonplace, the way smartphone mirroring is integrated into the round touchscreen infotainment system looks strange. It’s imposed onto the screen in a square envelope, which is fine, but there’s a wealth of unused negative space, which feels wasteful. I wish there was a smarter-looking and more seamless way to integrate this.

In terms of smartphone mirroring connectivity, I used my iPhone 15 Pro Max with wireless Apple CarPlay in many different Acemans during the launch program, and I didn’t experience any dropouts whatsoever.

There’s a wireless charger tucked away at the front of the centre console. It’s not overly noticeable, but there are small plastic bumpers that hold your phone in place. In practice, the wireless charger worked well, though on harder corners, my phone slipped out of the proper space and stopped charging.

Looking around, the cabin does look special with the aforementioned knitted textile inserts on the dashboard and door cards. The surfaces are coarse, though, which makes your elbow sore after resting it on the door armrest for a while.

There is also an interesting leatherette strap ahead of the driver, plus some cool Vibrant Silver highlights around the cabin, including on the circular air vent knobs. A panoramic glass sunroof is standard, which makes the cabin feel airy, though it doesn’t open to allow for more airflow.

In between the two front seats, there’s a tiny centre armrest that is only big enough for one person. It’s made of harder plastic, which made it felt hard after a while. Despite this, it’s surprising a car of this size has a centre armrest at all.

Speaking of harder plastics, there is a wealth of them, which is a tad disappointing, but you can tell Mini has put emphasis on the knitted textiles. There has to be cost-cutting to make up for this somewhere.

You can tell the Aceman is based on a small car when it comes to storage up front. It’s certainly at a premium. There’s an open tunnel space between the two front seats, as well as two cupholders. In the SE Favoured, there’s also a small storage box in this space.

Beyond this, there’s a glovebox, which is mediocre in terms of storage space, and small door pockets. That’s about it.

Moving to the second row you also need to limit your expectations. This is a small car, so you can’t be expecting oodles of room. It’s cramped when compared to the Countryman in terms of space, but it’s not too bad relative to the Cooper 3-Door, and there are actually three seats instead of two.

At a leggy 182cm, behind my own driving position I had to splay my legs on either side of the seat in front to get comfortable. Beyond this, head room and shoulder room are decent, which is surprising given the compact dimensions.

Second-row amenities are few and far between as there are no air vents or fold-down armrest. Instead, all you get is a singular cupholder at the end of the central storage tunnel that runs between the front two seats, and some USB-C ports. It’s clear the focus on this car is up front, and the second row is more for occasional use.

Around the back, there’s a manual tailgate that’s easy to open and close. The boot space on offer in this small car doesn’t sound fantastic on paper, but in reality it’s rather big. There’s also a huge underfloor section, which is more than enough space to store your charging cables.

Unsurprisingly, there’s no spare tyre across the range. Instead, you get a tyre inflator kit, which is nice to have, but won’t be anywhere near as helpful if you have a proper tyre blowout.

To see how the Mini Aceman stacks up against its rivals, use our comparison tool

What’s under the bonnet?

There’s no under-bonnet storage. Instead, there’s a single front-mounted electric motor and the related electric componentry.

To see how the Mini Aceman stacks up against its rivals, use our comparison tool

How does the Mini Aceman drive?

First up, I piloted the entry-level Aceman E Classic, which felt like the correct way to go about experiencing the lineup.

To start up the Aceman, you twist a tiny key-like knob on the pod of buttons and switches under the touchscreen infotainment system. It’s a call back to classic Minis, which is a fun touch.

All you hear when the car starts up is a confirmation bling sound. Given it’s purely electric, there’s no internal combustion engine that needs to fire up. This also means the car is completely silent at a standstill besides the whir of the air-conditioning system.

After turning on the car, you then put it into either drive or reverse by using a toggle switch gear selector to the right of the starter switch. It’s fairly intuitive to use, but there were occasions when I reached into the centre of the console for a gear selector that doesn’t exist.

There are two different ways to experience forward propulsion in this car. ‘D’ is a normal combustion-esque way of driving that requires you to press on the brake pedal to come to a complete stop. There are varying levels of regenerative braking to choose from, including an adaptive one that changes its intensity based on vehicle speed, among other factors.

Beyond ‘D’, there’s ‘B’, which is more like a one-pedal driving mode. It felt a lot more natural to use this, given the Aceman is an EV, and you can maximise the amount of regenerative braking energy that goes back into the battery. There are times when you do need to hit the brakes, but they are few and far between. Thankfully, the brake pedal doesn’t have a rubbery feel like some EVs do.

Around town, the Aceman E has completely adequate performance. In fact, you don’t need any more oomph from an urban-centric car like this, given it’ll likely spend the majority of its life around town or in the city.

Regardless of how hard you press the accelerator from a standstill, the front tyres won’t spin, which is a nice assurance. Despite this, there’s still plenty of zip to keep up with traffic from the lights. This is the main benefit of having an electric powertrain because the full amount of torque is available from standstill.

The pinch point with the entry-level Aceman E, however, is the limited amount of range it gets from its small 42.5kWh battery pack. It’s claimed to be able to get 300km, according to the lenient NEDC standard, and this isn’t much for the $51,990 drive-away price tag. Even entry-level versions of the BYD Dolphin, GWM Ora and MG 4 have more range, and they’re between $20,000-$30,000 more affordable.

Although range anxiety may be an issue for some, the Aceman E is impressively efficient. I achieved an average of 12.9kWh/100km, which is pretty much as good as a Tesla, on a 50km driving loop comprising some in-town driving and some higher-speed dynamic driving.

You can fix the range issue by stepping up to the Aceman SE, which notably gets you a larger 54.2kWh battery pack. This increases the NEDC claimed range figure to 380km, which is more adequate for a vehicle this size, but it’s still not fantastic given the car costs $60,990 before on-roads.

It’s clear the Aceman compromises electric range in favour of its funky looks.

This SE variant also gets a more powerful front-mounted electric motor, which is nice to have and to utilise, but it doesn’t feel necessary. The electric motor in the entry-level E makes do perfectly for its intended purpose.

All versions of the Aceman, like other new Minis, have a range of ‘Experience’ modes, which are essentially drive modes on steroids. The normal, or default, mode is called ‘Core’ and it felt the most natural for the majority of the driving we did during the launch program.

However, you can cycle between a wide range of others, including ‘Eco’, ‘Personal’, ‘Vivid’, ‘Timeless’, ‘Balance’, ‘Trail’, and ‘Go Kart’ using a toggle switch on the left-hand side of the starter knob. When you do this, a corresponding chime lets you know the car has entered a certain ‘Experience’ mode. This is a fun novelty feature, but thankfully you can turn the chimes off if they bug you.

Selecting different ‘Experience’ modes also makes the car play a different propulsion sound. While you’ll either love these or hate them, I particularly liked the ‘Go Kart’ sound because it adds to the feedback when accelerating quickly. It also gives the car a bit of character, unlike other EVs, which major on their silence.

Regardless of the variant, the Aceman, like all current Minis, is a fun and dynamic car to drive both around town and in the twisties. In fact, it’s smile-inducing how effectively you can link up corners in the car and still have plenty of grip. Mini certainly knows how to create an engaging front-wheel drive car that isn’t hampered by the added weight of a high-voltage battery. Other carmakers should take notes here.

Around town, the ride is generally comfortable, but bigger, singular bumps can transmit impacts into the cabin. This is because the entire Aceman range has large (and pretty) 19-inch alloy wheels and tyres as standard. It only gets worse at higher speeds as the ride gets overly busy, jittery and stiff. I wish Mini would give us the option of putting smaller 17- and 18-inch wheels on the Aceman because this would likely make a world of difference.

Speaking of higher speed, the Aceman is capable of driving at highway speeds on the open road, but you can tell it’s not its sweet spot. Acceleration does taper off a bit once you get above 70km/h, but there’s still enough oomph for overtaking if needed.

Surprisingly, the car feels relatively stable on the highway for such a small car, but there’s plenty of road and tyre noise at freeway speeds. This is amplified because there’s no combustion engine revving away under the bonnet to disguise them.

On the safety front, the Aceman is fully loaded, even from base level. The adaptive cruise control system is fantastic at managing a comfortable distance between the car ahead, and it also doesn’t overreact and brake too heavily when a car cuts in front of you.

Annoyingly, however, to change the set distance with the adaptive cruise control, you need to use the touchscreen infotainment system. There’s a shortcut button in the pod under the touchscreen, but you still need to do at least two presses on the touchscreen to change the setting.

Surely buttons on the steering wheel wouldn’t have been that hard to include, because they’re so much more intuitive. To me, it’s complexity for complexity’s sake.

The lane-keep assist system is also fantastic in terms of how it doesn’t go off too often and only intervenes when you actually need it to.

Then there’s also the lane centring system which works in conjunction with the adaptive cruise control. Unlike some, it works well and is something I’d actually use to reduce driver fatigue on longer drives.

To see how the Mini Aceman stacks up against its rivals, use our comparison tool

What do you get?

At launch, there are two variants available, but a hotter JCW flagship to sit at the top of the range is coming in a few months.

2025 Mini Aceman E Classic equipment highlights:

• 19-inch Eternal Spoke two-tone alloy wheels
• Tyre repair kit
• LED headlights
• Auto high-beam
• Customisable daytime running lights
• Classic exterior design details with Piano Black highlights
• Panoramic glass roof
• Roof rails
• Head-up display
• 9.4-inch round OLED infotainment touchscreen
• DAB+ digital radio
• Wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto
• Augmented reality satellite navigation
• Wireless charger
• 6-speaker 100W sound system
• Dual-zone climate control
• Ambient lighting
• Interior camera
• Head-up display
• Keyless entry and start
• Heated steering wheel
• Black/Blue cloth and Vescin leatherette upholstery
• Heated front seats
• 60:40 split/fold rear seats
• 8 selectable Mini Experience modes
• Mini Connected Services

Aceman SE Favoured adds:

• 19-inch Hexagram two-tone alloy wheels
• Sun protection glazing
• Vibrant Silver exterior and interior highlights
• 10-speaker Harman Kardon premium sound system
• Antracite headliner
• John Cooper Works seats
• Dark Petrol Vescin leatherette upholstery
• Electric front seat adjustment with memory
• Active driver’s seat

To see how the Mini Aceman stacks up against its rivals, use our comparison tool

Is the Mini Aceman safe?

The Mini Aceman has yet to be tested by ANCAP or Euro NCAP.

Standard safety equipment includes:

• Autonomous emergency braking (AEB)
• Blind-spot monitoring
• Exit warning
• Rear cross-traffic alert
• Driver attention monitoring
• Adaptive cruise control
• Steering and Lane Control Assistant (lane centring)
• Front and rear parking sensors
• Surround-view camera
• Parking Assistant Plus (includes semi-autonomous parking assist)
• SOS emergency calling

To see how the Mini Aceman stacks up against its rivals, use our comparison tool

How much does the Mini Aceman cost to run?

The Mini Aceman is covered by a five-year, unlimited-kilometre warranty.

To see how the Mini Aceman stacks up against its rivals, use our comparison tool

CarExpert’s Take on the Mini Aceman

The Mini Aceman is the perfect choice for people who want a stylish compact EV but think the Cooper 3-Door is too small and the Countryman is too big.

Whether there’s a big market of Australians who are looking for this type of car remains to be seen but, regardless, this small electric crossover has a lot to offer.

Even from base level, the Aceman is packed with standard equipment and the full gamut of safety gear. This isn’t always the case with mainstream vehicles. Its second row and boot, while sparse in terms of amenities, also aren’t as cramped as the car’s small exterior dimensions would suggest.

Then there’s the way it drives. Mini is known for producing cars with is signature go-kart feel behind the wheel, and the Aceman continues this tradition. It’s such a fun car to nip around town in, plus it can also hold its own out on twistier, high-speed roads without fuss.

Like all other current Minis, the Aceman is also chocked full of character and personality. You’re able to configure this car in so many different ways beyond the paint colour. Each ‘Experience’ mode, for example, is unique and it’s fun to find out which one suits your current mood.

Unfortunately, however, the Aceman isn’t perfect. You pay for the privilege of having a stylish and charismatic car because the range/price ratio doesn’t stack up competitively. About $52,000 for 300km of EV range in the Aceman E hurts, and $61k before on-roads for 380km of EV range in the Aceman SE is arguably worse value.

If this is a big consideration for you, we’d urge you to take a look at the larger (yet pricier) Mini Countryman Electric as it offers considerably more claimed EV range thanks to its larger battery. There are also a growing number of other small electric crossovers that might be worth considering, including the Jeep Avenger.

Interested in buying a Mini Aceman? Get in touch with one of CarExpert’s trusted dealers here

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