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Recently, BMW's MINI brand held a new car preview event in Europe, showing off the upcoming lineup of new MINI family models, including the new MINI COOPER, Aceman EV and MINI COUNTRYMAN, of which the new MINI COOPER and the new MINI COUNTRYMAN will be available in both fuel and pure electric versions, both of which are scheduled to be unveiled at the Munich auto show in September.

In addition, the European launch time of the three new models has also been announced, and the domestic launch time may lag slightly, but it can be used as a reference as a whole:

The new MINI COUNTRYMAN, expected to be launched in February 2024, will be put into production at BMW's Leipzig plant in Germany.

The new MINI COOPER EV, expected to go on sale in May 2024, will be sold domestically by BMW Great Wall Joint Venture Light Motor.

The new MINI COOPER fuel version is expected to go on sale in July 2024 and will be produced at the Oxford plant in the UK.

The MINI Aceman EV, which is first launched, is expected to be available in January 2025 and will be sold domestically by BMW Great Wall Joint Venture Light Motor.

MINI brand's MINI Concept Aceman concept car was officially unveiled on July 27th, 2022. As a new model of the MINI family, the new car is positioned as a cross-border small SUV, filling the market gap between MINI three-door version and MINI COUNTRYMAN.

In terms of appearance, the new car uses a new design language, the classic round headlamp group has become a polygonal design, the front grille is a closed design and is equipped with a LED "screen" inside, and there are red decorations in the longitudinal layout on both sides of the front, the overall design shows a wild aura. On the side of the body, the new car adopts a relatively smooth line design, and the front and rear wing panels with black wheel eyebrows show a wide visual effect. In the rear part, the new rear lamp group uses a black lampshade, which is equipped with a pixel LED lamp group, and the shapes on both sides form an abstract British rice flag. In addition, the rear enclosure of the new car is also designed in a different color from the body, with red decorative panels on both sides echoing the front part, and a similar rear guard design in the middle of the rear enclosure, which makes the new car look thicker.

Data show that Light Beam Automobile Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Beam Automobile") was established on December 27th, 2019, the registered address is Zhangjiagang Economic and technological Development Zone, Zhangjiagang City, Jiangsu Province, and the legal representative is Zhao Guoqing, deputy general manager and vice chairman of Great Wall Motors. The registered capital is 1.7 billion yuan, and the business period is from December 27, 2019 to December 26, 2034. Equity penetration shows that Great Wall Motor Co., Ltd. and BMW (Holland) Holdings each own 50% of the joint venture, of which BMW (Holland) Holdings is the actual controller.

Beam Automobile is the first joint venture project of Great Wall Motor, and it is also the first pure electric vehicle joint venture project of BMW in Germany. The cooperation mode of the two sides adopts the mode of "joint venture without joint venture" for the first time, that is, to jointly develop and produce automobiles. However, the products will be sold in the respective service networks of BMW Group and Great Wall Motor respectively by brand.

It should be noted that the beam car is just a company name, and the brand name is temporarily unknown. As mentioned earlier, the cooperation model between Great Wall and BMW adopts the "joint venture not joint venture" model for the first time, that is, jointly develop and produce cars, and the products will be sold in the respective service networks of BMW Group and Great Wall Motor respectively by brand. In other words, beam does not need to build sales channels, and related products will be sold in Great Wall and BMW stores in the future.

However, the progress of the beam car has been particularly slow, and the later smart, the first all-electric model, has been mass-produced and launched in China. On December 27, 2019, Geely Automobile Group Co., Ltd. and Mercedes-Benz Co., Ltd. jointly funded the establishment of Zhi Motor Automobile Co., Ltd. On June 6, 2022, smart Elf # 1 officially launched. The new car is based on Geely's vast SEA architecture, is designed by Mercedes-Benz design department, and is developed and manufactured by Geely. It is positioned as a pure electric small SUV with a price of 18.16-226600 yuan.

For BMW, to maintain its position as a pioneer in the industry and lay down a territory in China's highly competitive electric market still has a long way to go. Similar to luxury brands such as Audi and Mercedes-Benz, BMW has accelerated its electrified layout, launching electric vehicles including BMW i7, BMW i3, BMW i4, BMW iX and BMW iX3 in the Chinese market in 2022. Official figures show that BMW delivered 791900 BMW and MINI vehicles in the Chinese market in 2022, of which 41886 pure electric models were sold, an increase of 91.6% over the same period last year, but its delivery volume still lags far behind that of local new power brands such as Lulai and ideal.

Gaulle, president and CEO of BMW Group Greater China, said that the outstanding sales results of BMW's pure electric models in 2022 are just the beginning. This year, BMW will go all out to electrify and bring 11 pure electric products to Chinese customers. prepare for the arrival of the "new generation" model in 2025. According to the plan, BMW will launch 25 new energy models by 2023, including 12 plug-in hybrids and 13 all-electric models, covering the BMW, MINI and BMW M series.

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