Autocar June 3, 2020

WHEN SIR JAMES Dyson’s vaunted UK car-building operation hit the buffers last October, the armchair experts told one another it was the usual kind of car company failure: an oddball idea and a team with insufficient car-building experience chasing insufficient investment. Even the £2.5 billion of his own money the entrepreneur had earmarked for the project was too little, they said. Who, in this day and age, would expect to start a whole car company on that? We now know the armchair experts were wrong. Dyson did not fail for the classic reasons. It was killed by a strange, adverse and temporary market. It died because practically every other electrified car on the market is underpriced so its manufacturer can meet tough new CO2 targets yet go on selling profitable conventional cars.…

WHEN SIR JAMES Dyson’s vaunted UK car-building operation hit the buffers last October, the armchair experts told one another it was the usual kind of car company failure: an oddball idea and a team with insufficient car-building experience chasing insufficient investment. Even the £2.5 billion of his own money the entrepreneur had earmarked for the project was too little, they said. Who, in this day and age, would expect to start a whole car company on that? We now know the armchair experts were wrong. Dyson did not fail for the classic reasons. It was killed by a strange, adverse and temporary market. It died because practically every other electrified car on the market is underpriced so its manufacturer can meet tough new CO2 targets yet go on selling profitable…

“The two new SUVs are set to retain Mini’s traditional focus on compactness” Mini is set to expand its line-up to include two new SUV models in the biggest shake-up to its operations since coming under BMW ownership in 2001. The firm is developing both an electric crossover as part of a Chinese joint venture and a combustion-engined SUV that will be BMW’s latest modular platform. The two models are intended to extend Mini’s reach by taking the brand into untapped market segments and exposing it to new customers, according to officials with knowledge of the plans. Although it was originally touted to be a three-door hatchback in the mould of the Rocketman concept, Autocar has been told that the first Chinese-produced Mini will be a five-door crossover-style SUV of similar dimensions to…

The expansion of Mini into previously untapped SUV markets makes sense, especially as the Countryman is simply too small for most US buyers. But we can’t help casting our mind back to previous range additions that didn’t make a lot of sense to anyone. Reviving the Paceman in concept as a sleek-looking EV crossover is a much better idea than the first use of the name. It was launched in 2012 as a kind of three-door, sloping-roof version of the previous-generation Countryman. Unsurprisingly, it was never a huge hit: it looked very much like the standard SUV but brought with it greatly reduced practicality. It was axed less than four years after it was launched. A similar fate befell the Mini Coupé and Roadster models, launched at around the same time and…

“The two new SUVs are set to retain Mini’s traditional focus on compactness” Mini is set to expand its line-up to include two new SUV models in the biggest shake-up to its operations since coming under BMW ownership in 2001. The firm is developing both an electric crossover as part of a Chinese joint venture and a combustion-engined SUV that will be BMW’s latest modular platform. The two models are intended to extend Mini’s reach by taking the brand into untapped market segments and exposing it to new customers, according to officials with knowledge of the plans. Although it was originally touted to be a three-door hatchback in the mould of the Rocketman concept, Autocar has been told that the first Chinese-produced Mini will be a five-door crossover-style SUV of…

The expansion of Mini into previously untapped SUV markets makes sense, especially as the Countryman is simply too small for most US buyers. But we can’t help casting our mind back to previous range additions that didn’t make a lot of sense to anyone. Reviving the Paceman in concept as a sleek-looking EV crossover is a much better idea than the first use of the name. It was launched in 2012 as a kind of three-door, sloping-roof version of the previous-generation Countryman. Unsurprisingly, it was never a huge hit: it looked very much like the standard SUV but brought with it greatly reduced practicality. It was axed less than four years after it was launched. A similar fate befell the Mini Coupé and Roadster models, launched at around the same…