Mini Couper could be produced in China with New Platform

On Friday, BMW, the parent company of Mini has planned to partner with a Chinese automaker which is Great Wall in terms of producing the car. 

BMW has planned to partner withGreat Wall in terms of producing Mini Couper

This partnership can be explained by the fact that China is the BMW's biggest market. The German automaker has sold out 560,000 car units last year only in the Chinese market which is more than the sales number of Germany and the US combined. Off all, there are 35,000 Minis rolled out. China is moving at a fast clip in terms of growth in general which proves it to be a teeming market so far for the electric vehicles. Moreover, Great Wall Motor is considered China’s seventh-largest carmaker as well as the biggest producer of sport utility vehicles.

 Great Wall Motor is considered China’s seventh-largest carmaker

Last year, BMW announced that they would kick off to produce the electric Mini in 2019 at the main factory of Mini in the UK. However, the production run in the UK was claimed to be small. Now, expanding the market of the Germany automaker in China has revived the worries over the future of thousands of jobs at the UK plant.

 BMW announced that they would kick off to produce the electric Mini in 2019 at the main factory of Mini in the UK

Justin Cox, the auto production expert and director at LMC Automotive reported,

"There is always a degree of 'paranoia' following announcements like this - especially with everything so politically charged in the UK. Some suggest that Mini's future direction is to be an 'all-electric' brand. If that is the case, the Oxford plant will need be part of this transition to survive."

By broadening its presence and ensuring its long-term survival, Cox claimed that BMW's push into China market would ultimately be good for the Mini brand.

"Expansion of the BMW brand in its largest markets, such as China, has not led to a decrease in production at the company's German plants. On the contrary, between 2007 and 2017, production in Germany increased by close to a quarter." 

The Oxford-based brand would witness the partnership of BMW and Great Wall to develop the new small front-wheel-drive platform. This will be designed for an all-new range of Minis which gears up launching in 2023.

The Oxford-based brand would witness the partnership of BMW and Great Wall

The Mini brand dislocation comes after the decision of BMW to shift the production to only two platforms for all of its future models which are

• Dubbed FAAR for front-wheel-drive cars

• CLAR for rear-wheel-drive ones

Specifically, the FAAR architecture said to be oversized to underpin the future Mini models.  Compared to the existing rather simpler, front-wheel-drive UKL platform, which underpins the Mini family and BMW models like the 2-Series Active Tourer and X1, the future platform might be more expensive to develop which underpins the Mini family and BMW models like the 2-Series Active Tourer and X1.

The Mini brand dislocation comes after the decision of BMW 

In case that the new BMW-Great Wall platform project is working on, the three-door body style and cabriolet would also be dropped. It is expected from the fan to see a compact five-door hatchback. The new Countryman models and Clubman offered will be less bulky than today’s cars.

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