Name: 2025 Mini Countryman EV
Brand: Mini

Mini Countryman EV First Drive

Summary

Introduction

The Electric 2025 Mini Countryman SE Charms and Befuddles

The biggest Mini is better as an EV, but it shares some of the same annoying flaws as its gas-powered counterpart

Overview

We just purchased a 2025 Mini Countryman SE, the all-electric version of Mini’s Countryman compact SUV. We’re in the process of driving it for 2,000 miles before we put it through all our tests to determine its Overall Score. But before all that, we’re sharing our first impressions of this new vehicle.

The Countryman SE is the latest Mini to launch under the company’s new strategy of offering gas and electric versions of every vehicle. (The plug-in hybrid Countryman is no more.) Parked next to each other, it’s difficult to tell the difference between the gas Countryman and the electric one we’re testing, aside from the SE’s solid grille and green “S” badges on the front and rear instead of red ones. This makes us wonder why Mini didn’t just give it “SE” badges. Inside, there’s the same pared-down aesthetic and circular infotainment screen featured in every new Mini.

In fact, the two fellow Countrymen have so much in common that for the purposes of this First Drive review, we’re going to focus on what makes the SE different: It has two electric motors—one for the front wheels and one for the rear wheels—and a battery that’s good for 212 miles of driving range between charges, according to estimates from the Environmental Protection Agency.

The Countryman SE’s closest competitor is the Volvo XC40 Recharge EV, which is about the same size and about the same price. (We tested the related C40 Recharge.) Both vehicles trade heavily on style, although the XC40 has a considerably longer range. The Countryman is big and heavy for a Mini, but it is still small for the emerging class. It’s between 6 and 8 inches shorter than the Ford Mustang Mach-E, Hyundai Ioniq 5, Kia EV6, Nissan Ariya, and Volkswagen ID.4.

Mini—which is owned by BMW—builds the Countryman SE in Leipzig, Germany, so it doesn’t qualify for a federal tax credit unless you choose to lease it.

After driving the SE for a few weeks, we can confidently say that electrification makes a difference for this little SUV.

Impressions

What We Like

The smooth, quick electric powertrain

We had plenty of complaints about the gas-powered Countryman’s engine and transmission, which lurched and shuddered at low speeds and in stop-and-go traffic. The electric powertrain smooths out that shuddering and adds impressively quick acceleration. A battery and two electric motors make this Countryman closer to the vehicle it always should’ve been.

Ride comfort

In general, when automakers add an electric powertrain, they have to modify a vehicle’s suspension because of the heft and different weight distribution of a battery and electric motors. We think that the SE rides more comfortably than the gas-powered Countryman, and the wee SUV feels slightly more supple.

Everything we like about the gas-powered version

We won’t repeat everything we said already—you can read our review of our 2025 Mini Countryman S All4 for more detail—but we love the new Countryman’s design and think it is superbly packaged. Luckily, Mini’s designers didn’t make any changes when they added batteries.

According to EPA estimates, the EV’s cargo area is a teeny-tiny bit smaller, but we think the difference is imperceptible. Otherwise, the SE shares all the benefits of the gas-powered model. The roomy interior is easy to get in and out of, there’s tons of interior storage, headroom is some of the best we’ve seen outside of a full-sized SUV, and the interior design feels extremely special thanks to unique materials.

What We Don't Like

That touchscreen and infotainment system

It’s the same annoying system as in the regular Countryman—a giant circle that displays everything from speed to climate control—except the SE debuted a bit later, so Mini had four more months to fix the most egregious glitches. Did they? No! Here’s what we experienced:

Without any rhyme or reason, a video of a corgi dancing to “Pump Up the Jam” would occasionally take over the entire screen when we started the car. Sometimes we could skip it; sometimes we could not. Absent another way to interface with the vehicle, we were forced to wait—in parking lots, in the driveway, in the garage—until the song ended. “A dog ate my speedometer” was the only excuse for subsequent tardiness. We grew to loathe the video and song after a week, which is a shame because corgis are adorable and Ya Kid K is a trailblazer.
The speed limit detection consistently reads signs incorrectly. We were driving on a residential street with a speed limit of 30 mph when we approached the junction of a Connecticut state road signed as Route 80. However, our screen told us the speed limit was 80. This is a problem because Mini’s Speed Limit Assistant has an automatic feature that, on certain roads, adjusts adaptive cruise control to match whatever speed limit it detects. Mini claims that its speed limit recognition software performs a “plausibility check” with built-in mapping data—apparently, the coders behind it think it’s plausible to blast past an elementary school at 80 mph. We didn’t experience this same problem in BMW vehicles we drove on the same roads, even though BMW owns Mini.
Android Auto and Apple CarPlay had numerous glitches. Sometimes the car just didn’t recognize our phone. Sometimes it required us to re-pair or delete and re-pair our connection. Try doing that with your in-laws in the back seat, with a state trooper yelling at you to move out of the pickup lane at the airport, or when you’re late for an appointment you have no idea how to get to. It felt like defusing a bomb on live television. We didn’t experience this level of bugginess from BMW, either, and there’s no corded backup.
As on other Minis we’ve driven, the Apple CarPlay navigation screen was oddly cropped. In practice, this means the driver can’t see the icon representing where they are on the map, which makes navigation totally useless. On top of the actual issues with the system, it remains one of the least user-friendly interfaces we’ve come across. Changing the temperature is finicky and requires a precise movement to slide your finger up or down on the red or blue bars above the temperature icon. Changing the fan speed or settings requires going into another menu. It’s far too involved and requires the driver to take their eyes off the road for too long. Some of us were also baffled as to how to adjust the distance setting for the adaptive cruise control. We drive a ton of cars every year and can almost always figure out complex controls without a long read of the owner’s manual. But, more than once, these new Minis left us scratching our heads.

Uncompetitive range

We got close to the EPA-estimated 212 miles on a few jaunts that mixed city and highway driving in above-freezing temperatures. You could easily drive from Mini’s spiritual home in Oxford to nearly anywhere in England on a single charge: Manchester, Leeds, York, Cornwall, or Norwich are all within range. It’s also plenty of range for most Americans to accomplish their daily commute and errands. However, the Mini costs more than many of its longer-range competitors. So why would you pay more for less?

Adaptive regenerative braking

Like all EVs, the Mini recaptures energy from the brakes that would’ve been lost as heat, a process known as regenerative braking. When they’re turned up for maximum energy recovery, regenerative brakes can instantly kick in as soon as the driver lets off the accelerator. Most EVs, including the SE, allow drivers to set the amount of regen. But like other EVs from BMW, Mercedes-Benz, and Mini, the Countryman has an “Adaptive” setting for "intelligent adjustment of braking effect through energy recovery when lifting off the accelerator pedal." On the Countryman, we found this default setting confusing and annoying since we could never quite predict how quickly the vehicle would slow down. Sometimes the car started braking when we laid off the accelerator heading into a curve. Sometimes it didn’t. Occasionally we could bring the car to a stop at a red light without using the brakes. Other times, the car would just keep coasting. We can’t believe we have to say this, but brake action should be predictable.

What We'll Keep An Eye On

Noise

Some of our drivers think the lack of an engine note takes away from the Countryman’s “Mini-ness.” Others think the artificial noises are delightful and like something out of a Mario Kart video game. All of us agree that the Countryman is very quiet—there’s no electric motor whine or weirdness—until some serious wind noise hits at highway speeds.

Handling

We all agree that the SE’s instantaneous torque from the electric motor up front adds some torque steer—when the car pulls slightly to one side during acceleration regardless of where the steering wheel is pointed. Otherwise, there’s a bit of a debate. Some drivers found the SE nimble and fun to drive, while others say it feels “rubbery,” with more pronounced body roll than the gas model. Most of our driving has been on public roads so far, so we’ll wait to make a final judgment until after we’ve spent some time on our closed test track.

Charging speed

It’s capable of a maximum acceptance rate of 130 kW at public DC fast charging (DCFC) stations. That’s faster than the Toyota bZ4x and Subaru Solterra and the same as the Nissan Ariya, but slower than the newest, fastest-charging models from Chevrolet, Honda, Hyundai, Kia, Tesla, and Volkswagen. Although Mini plans to switch its vehicles to Tesla-style NACS charging plugs, our 2025 model has a CCS DC fast charging port.

Is it on or off

Because they don’t require an ignition, many EVs have no start/stop button and “wake up” as soon as you sit in the car, only turning on fully when you shift into Drive or Reverse. Others act more like a gas-powered vehicle, staying fully off until you press a button or turn a switch. In its default setting, however, the Countryman SE seems to remain in a liminal state when you get into it. Almost all functions operate until you turn the start/stop switch, which only unlocks the ability to shift the car into gear. The only identifiable indicator of whether the vehicle is ready to drive or not is an icon at the top of the center screen that reads “OFF” when you first get in and step on the brake pedal. It changes to “READY” when you turn the car on. We’ll see if this gets any more intuitive as we spend more time with it.

Safety and Driver Assistance Systems

Like the gas-powered Countryman, the new SE finally gets the blind spot warning (BSW) system that its predecessor notably lacked. However, like many BMW and Mini vehicles, its adaptive cruise control (ACC) doesn’t have a simple way of adjusting how much of a gap it leaves ahead of the vehicle. We’ll be sure to put the Countryman’s advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) through their paces on our new test loop.