AutoBeta(AutoBeta.net)05/15 Report--

On May 13th, BMW Group announced the latest personnel appointment for the MINI brand. According to the notice, from August 1, 2024, Stefan Richmann will take over the management of MINI from Stefanie Wurst as the new CEO of the MINI brand.

According to public information, Richmann joined the BMW Group as early as 1997 and has held a number of senior positions in finance and product management, including the chief financial officer of BMW USA and the chief financial officer of BMW Spain. Wurst, who has been CEO of the MINI brand since 2022, continued to expand the lineup of MINI-branded electric products and played a decisive role in introducing MINI direct sales channels into the Chinese and European markets.

Looking back at the tenure of recent MINI chief executives, they have remained at about three years, a relatively short period, before being transferred to other higher-level internal positions at BMW. Stefanie Wurst, CEO of the MINI brand since 2022, has made a significant contribution to updating the MINI brand product line, expanding its electric product lineup and entering new market segments with the new Countryman compact crossover and Aceman small electric crossover. It is worth mentioning that BMW Group did not disclose the future of Stefanie Wurst.

MINI was originally a British carmaker, and the Oxford plant can be said to be the home of the MINI brand. Even though BMW acquired the brand in 1994 and moved some production to Europe and Asia, the plant has been producing MINI models for more than 60 years. In the past few decades, the British did not stop pinning their hopes on the brand until the wave of new energy vehicles swept the world, BMW accelerated its full electrification and the MINI brand was involved. According to the plan, the MINI brand will launch its last fuel model in 2025, after which it will focus entirely on pure electric models. By 2027, pure trams will account for at least 50 per cent of MINI's sales. By 2030, all MINI models will be purely electric, and MINI will be the first BMW brand to achieve pure electrification.

At the 2024 Beijing Auto Show, the new MINI COOPER and the new MINI Aceman jointly built by Great Wall Motor and BMW Group were unveiled, in which the new MINI COOPER is the first production car under the Light Motor, positioning the small pure electric SUV, using the classic two-door design, and is scheduled to be listed and supplied to the global market in 2024, while the new MINI Aceman is the second production car under the beam automobile, which is also positioned as the small pure electric SUV. MINI Aceman will fill the gap between MINI and MINI COUNTRYMAN in the future.

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.

In September 2023, MINI announced a comprehensive electrification strategy. Beam cars will become the world's first producing area and major export base for the next generation of MINI pure electric models. Then in October, the new MINI COOPER came off the line at the beam car factory, and the first SOP models (small batch production) were for export only. In December 2023, Beamlight Automobile was qualified for independent production.

Sales of MINI in China have declined in recent years, from 34100 in 2019 to 28700 in 2022 and then to 18200 in 2023, lagging far behind the market of traditional fuel luxury brands. Due to the low sales in China, the models produced by Beamlight may be mainly aimed at overseas markets or become the second largest production base of MINI in the world.

Welcome to subscribe to the WeChat public account "Automotive Industry Focus" to get the first-hand insider information on the automotive industry and talk about things in the automotive circle. Welcome to break the news! WeChat ID autoWechat