Few small cars have made such a big impact on me at first sight as the Mini Aceman. It’s about as cute as electric crossovers get with its flat pug-like snout, blistered fenders and generally good proportions. When I saw it in photos, I didn’t think much of it, but in person I quite liked it.
For someone in Europe, like me, it's a strong contender in the quickly growing field of more compact EVs: cars like the Volvo EX30, Dacia Spring, upcoming Kia EV2 and so on. For any EV (or Mini) fans in the U.S., there's just one big problem: the Aceman isn't confirmed to be coming your way. Blame the fact that it's made in China or uncertainty over other potential tariffs or other factors, but Mini's official launch plans for many of its newer EVs in America can best be described as "TBD."
That's a shame, because it may have proven more popular than you think.
(Full Disclosure: Mini loaned me an Aceman to review in Romania for a few days.)
2024 Mini Aceman
What Is It?
The Mini Aceman gets the typical crossover exterior treatment with unpainted plastic around the entire lower part of the car. But at just 59.6 inches (1.51 meters) tall, it’s not fooling anyone: this is a hatchback pretending to be an SUV, and the look is completed by subtle roof rails that add a bit of ruggedness. My tester’s 19-inch wheels sat nicely in the arches and it didn’t look like its suspension was lifted.
Measuring just 160.6 inches (4.08 meters) in length, the Aceman is on the smaller side of what Americans might buy. It’s nine inches (23 centimeters) shorter than a Chevrolet Bolt EUV, but I was surprised to discover its interior is quite roomy. It can just about accommodate four six-footers such as myself, and I had no trouble fitting behind my driving position.
The floor is also not unnaturally high in the rear, so you don’t feel like your knees are being pushed too far up, and headroom is decent. With just 10.6 cubic feet (300 liters) of maximum load volume in the trunk, it is also on the small side and there’s no frunk. If you require additional space, you can utilize the roof rails and install a roof box on the car. If you get one in black to match the contrasting roof, it will look great.
Inside, it is virtually identical to its three-door brother. The focal point of the interior is still the 9.5-inch circular OLED display, which runs Mini’s Android Automotive-based operating system. This is one of the coolest-looking infotainment screens in the industry, and there’s nothing quite like it in another car.
The same knitted plastic material that we saw in the three-door electric Cooper is present on the dashboard and door cards of the Aceman. It has several patterns that differ depending on the trim level, and my Flavoured tester had an orange pattern running across the dash, varying the pattern from one side to the other. I really liked the knitted piping along the sides of the front seats.
What I didn’t like that much is the tiny central storage cubby, which looks like a tall designer sunglasses holder and it doesn’t offer a whole lot more space than one. The nearby cupholders are quite shallow and taller drinks may fly out if you accelerate hard, which you just might given the Aceman’s fun-loving character, stiff and sporty ride and plenty of poke from its single front-mounted electric motor.
How Does It Drive?
The base Aceman E has a 38.5 kilowatt-hour battery pack and a 184 horsepower electric motor. My Aceman SE tester has a more powerful 218 hp drive unit that draws from a 54.2 kWh battery with a usable capacity of 49.2 kWh. It offers up to 252 miles (406 km) of WLTP range on one charge, but in sub-freezing temperatures and snowy roads, it never showed more than 150 miles (245 km) fully charged.
You can precondition the battery on the way to the charger, which should allow you to get close to the maximum charging power of 95 kilowatts, which is pretty low for a modern EV, but it does the 10 to 80% dash in just under half an hour. When I plugged the car in after preconditioning the battery for around 10 minutes on the way to a 150 kW charger, it never pulled more than 45 kW.
The observed efficiency over the weekend I had the car was quite far off the claimed 4.4 miles/kWh. I was getting closer to 2.8 miles/kWh, but it was constantly below freezing and the roads were covered with snow and ice, so I wasn't hoping to come close to the manufacturer's efficiency claims this time. I also had the cabin heating set to nice and toasty and the heated seat and steering wheel on almost constantly.
The Aceman is one of the few EVs where I could feel the battery thermal management turning on and off. There was a slight vibration going through the entire car, like in a combustion engine car but more subdued. It’s not something to detract from the experience, but it makes the Aceman unusual in this respect.
I didn’t get to drive it on dry roads the second time, but this isn’t the first time that I’ve had this car to review. I first picked it up in January, drove it around for a few hours, but when I wanted to set off after taking some photos, it wouldn’t go into drive, and whenever you turned the car on, it turned itself off.
After keeping buttons pressed for 30 seconds or more, as per instructions from BMW, I performed a hard reset, and it seemed to fix the problem, but I decided to take the car back as it was apparently overdue for a software update.
When I had the car the first time, before the heavens opened unleashing heavy snowfall, I loved the way it drove and found it fun and planted just like the three-door hatch. In fact, it didn’t feel too different at all, right down to its suspension, which is quite bouncy and sacrifices some comfort in favor of Mini’s legendary go kart handling.
As I said at the start, the Aceman is a slightly tall hatchback masquerading as an all-terrain vehicle. Mini has tried to drive that point home by installing the front seats quite high, and I couldn’t get the driver’s seat low enough to really feel connected to the car. This isn’t an issue in the three-door hatch, but it is in the Aceman and I'm pretty sure it was a choice on Mini's part.
With the seat all the way down and the steering wheel pulled all the way up and toward me, I still felt like I was sitting on the car rather than in it. Sure, this age-old car journalist cliché is overused, but that’s exactly how I felt in the Aceman, especially comparing it to the three-door Cooper and other Mini models.
Gallery: Mini Aceman SE Review
The driving position was my biggest gripe with the Mini Aceman, and maybe the ride could have been just that little bit more cossetting. But it’s a fun EV that puts a smile on your face, and it’s just the right size to keep it feeling nimble and maneuverable while not compromising massively on interior space.
The Verdict
For American buyers who typically favor larger crossovers and SUVs (and Mini sells the new Countryman in the U.S.), the Aceman's absence may not seem like a significant loss, but it seems like a missed opportunity—regardless of whose fault that is.
The Aceman blends Mini’s signature driving fun with the practicality of a (tall) five-door hatch, offering a characterful alternative to more generic small EVs. For now, tariffs and production localization issues mean this quirky, fun-sized electric Mini will likely remain a forbidden fruit in the States for some time.
Whether or not buyers would have embraced it, we’ll never know, but if you ask me, it deserved a shot.
