MINI ACEMAN

New electric-only baby crossover joins the fleet in its cheapest form

- MURRAY SCULLION

WHY WE'RE RUNNING IT To find out how easy it is to live with a small-battery EV in 2025

The eagle-eyed among you might recognise YE74 NKC. It graced these pages a few weeks ago, when I delivered a two-and-a-half-star verdict on it. It's important at this point to note that it underachieved in this specific form: the small-battery one. The big-battery model tested earlier this year achieved three and a half stars. I'm hoping that living with this car might prompt a thorough reappraisal and prove the smaller battery isn't so much of an impediment to daily life.

Let's make some introductions. The Aceman is Mini's new electric-only baby crossover - a rival to the Volvo EX30 and Ford Puma Gen-E and ostensibly a tall and chunky Cooper hatchback. The E version has a diddy usable battery capacity of 38.5kWh, which the WLTP lab boffins reckon is good for 190 miles of range.

When I saw the spec sheet, I didn't think much of the silver body and grey wheels combination, but it really works in the metal. The paint's hues range from blue to grey depending on how the light catches it and the alloys are a dark, slightly metallic grey.

Mini pitches this Chinese-made crossover as a halfway house between the Cooper and the Countryman SUV. A deft move, really, as the former is one of the smallest cars on the market today, while the latter has grown to the size of a Nissan Qashqai.