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Jul 04, 2023

New 2024 Mini Cooper Electric shows off new round OLED dials and lightshow

Published: 27 July 2023 ► New Mini Cooper Electric interior revealed► First look at new Mini’s light and sound show► Toggles, round OLED displays, a wollen dash! Mini continues to dripfeed details of

Published: 27 July 2023

► New Mini Cooper Electric interior revealed► First look at new Mini’s light and sound show► Toggles, round OLED displays, a wollen dash!

Mini continues to dripfeed details of the new 2024 Mini Cooper Electric – and today we get our first look at the new round OLED dials and more details about the sound and light show that turns the cabin into an animated interior.

The fourth generation of BMW’s Mini will usher in a new era for the storied British small car and clever-clogs digital trickery is at the heart of it.

The Mini Interaction Unit (yes, really…) is Munich’s name for the round OLED display measuring 24cm in diameter and CAR has sampled its graphics in action: they’re pin-sharp and fast-reacting; because the screen is positioned in the classic central location on the dashboard, it can be read by the driver and passengers.

Mini’s designers are balancing modern graphics with a more retro style, including the ability to set the dials into a retro typeface reminiscent of the 1950s original. This is just one of eight Experience Modes available, ranging from Core to Go-Kart and Green depending on your driving style requirements.

Whichever mode the screen is set in, Mini has finally optimised the display for a round screen; even third-party apps such as Spotify now fit and work in the circular space.

These first official photographs reveal the interior of the new Mini Cooper Electric, ahead of its world debut at the IAA German car show in September. You’ll have to wait a few more weeks to see the exterior of the 2024 Mini family in full – but you can scroll down this page to see our spy photographs showing the car completely undisguised.

It’s the first fruits of a fresh collaboration between Munich and Great Wall Motor, as the two car makers are co-developing the EV creds of BMW’s premium supermini.

Just like the current car, the new Mini Cooper Electric’s cabin is dominated by that circular display – but this one is a giant touchscreen whose graphics are designed to fit the round shape fully. Gone are the days of a small rectangular display squeezed awkwardly into an analogue round dial.

The images released by BMW show a dynamic display housing all instruments within the circular screen – including read-outs for speed, navigation, audio and phone readings.

Elsewhere, the interior is pared-back and shorn of much adornment. Note the head-up display visible in this image above, plus physical heating controls that retain the classic Mini toggle switch and an interestingly textured dashboard top.

It’s designed to hark back to the 1959 original three core cabin elements: a steering wheel, round centre dial and a toggle bar. We’re not sure what a Londoner in the Swinging Sixties would make of the new knitted dashboard texture – the home for projected light shows and a son et lumière experience depending on the driving mode selected…

A total of 30 new sounds have been developed for warning and information functions and drivers can use ‘Hey Mini’ requests in the newly updated Mini Operating System OS9, which is built around the Android software stack.

Mini showcased part of its new infotainment system at the Shanghai motor show this spring: the British bulldog motif is being used in China to emphasise the brand’s Britishness – but ignore the canine fluff and this is our first sight of how the centrally mounted dial will spawn a new digital touchpoint for owners, who can run nav, apps and heating systems from the prominent round screen on the dashboard.

CAR magazine has obtained early photographs of an undisguised Mini Cooper Electric, taken during a photoshoot in America ahead of its official launch.

The distinctive Mini silhouette is remarkably unchanged, with the floating contrast-colour roof, blacked-out window pillars and flush glazing all continuing in to the fourth generation of Mini. It’s an enduring aesthetic that’s lasted remarkably well since the first R50 arrived in 2000.

Perhaps the most distinctive new details are at the front and rear: the new 2024 Mini Cooper is bookended by a mono-panel grille with trad oval headlights and distinctive new, triangular rear lamps with toned-down echoes of the Union flag motif from today’s Mini hatchback.

Although this is the Mini Cooper Electric, as confirmed by the absence of cooling vanes in the front grille and any visible exhaust pipe, the Mini hatchback will again be available as a petrol version. This time, in an attempt to streamline the badging hierarchy, all models will be badged Mini Cooper (instead of Hatchback).

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The blue car in these early official photographs is badged Mini Cooper S, suggesting that the company is sticking with its tried-and-tested range hierarchy. The small-car brand is falling in line with the BMW mothership, in letting buyers choose any bodystyle in any which powertrain option (in the same way you can choose a BMW 7-series or i7).

The Mini Cooper Electric is our first look at the new Chinese-built EV architecture resulting from BMW’s collaboration with Great Wall in the Spotlight Automotive venture. This is a new electric platform that will underpin every new generation of Mini we’ll see in the next three years, as Munich upgrades its entire small-car range. It will offer the following battery capacities and specs:

Petrol versions will be upgraded to follow closely the new look pictured here – but will, effectively, continue on today’s hardware with 1.5- and 2.0-litre engines and final assembly at Plant Oxford. It’s a neat way of BMW bridging the gap during the electric switchover and hedge its bets.

Expect to see the new Mini unveiled in September 2023, with media drives later this year and the first customer cars due in February or March 2024, just in time for Britain’s new 24-reg number plates.

After a quiet few years, this is the start of a major product blitz from Mini: the Cooper Electric will be shown at the same time as the new Mini Countryman (also available as petrol or electric, but no longer as a plug-in hybrid) and will go on sale in April/May 2024.

Five-door versions of the Mini hatch will follow, as will Convertibles – again, offered in a variety of powertrain choices.

By Tim Pollard

Our group digital editorial director oversees all automotive websites at parent company Bauer Media, is a former chair of the British Society of Magazine Editors and has been reviewing cars for some of Britain's biggest motoring brands since the 1990s