Most new electric Minis are built in China in partnership with GWM, but the BMW-owned brand has indicated buyers don’t care – or may not even know.

Made in China cars no concern for buyers, Mini says

Mini says buyers of its latest crop of electric cars are not bothered that their new purchase is sourced from China – not the UK – amid strong sales of battery-powered models in the company’s range.

The latest Cooper and Aceman electric cars are built in China in a partnership with GWM – one of the country’s largest auto giants, makers of the Mini-inspired GWM Ora EV.

“So far, we haven’t had any comments from the dealer network or from the customers, so there hasn’t been any topics around that,” Alex Bruckhoff, general manager of Mini Australia and New Zealand, told Drive.

“And obviously, it’s a fully developed, fully designed car by the BMW Group, and we have Spotlight as a manufacturing partner from China and so far, there haven’t been any comments from customers around the production.”

The first Chinese built electric Mini at Zhangjiagang plant of Beam Automotive in 2023. Posted by 痛快舒畅 on Chinese social media app Weibo.

A Mini Australia spokesperson added: “We have 30 production plants around the world, and every one of those 30 production plants operate according to BMW Group’s high standards.

“Even if we are employing locally, those local employees abide by the BMW Group’s global premium production standards. So you buy into the brand, you don’t buy into where cars [are sourced] from.”

Artificial intelligence (AI) technology is used as part of the quality control process in China, the spokesperson said.

Mini is far from the only European car maker to build cars in China for the global market, with parent BMW producing its iX3 electric SUV there for international sale.

Chinese production of the BMW iX3 began in 2020.

Most other Chinese-made, European-badged cars sold in Australia are electric: the Cupra Tavascan, Lotus Eletre and Emeya, and the Polestar and Smart line-ups.

Chinese production lends the Mini Cooper EV and Aceman no price advantage in terms of tariffs in Australia, as all new electric cars priced under the Luxury Car Tax are exempt from import duties, irrespective of where they are built.

The only Mini model to incur a 5 per cent import tariff on entry to Australia is the petrol-powered Countryman, as Australia has a Free Trade Agreement with the UK where the petrol Cooper is built.

Mini Cooper and Mini Aceman waiting for shipment at a shipping terminal in Shanghai, China. Photographer: Qilai Shen/Bloomberg via Getty Images.

But Chinese manufacturing has increasingly caused headaches for Mini overseas.

It was hit last year with a 20.7 per cent tariff on its Chinese-made EVs in Europe, while plans to sell the electric Cooper and Aceman in the US have been scrapped due to President Donald Trump’s 125 per cent tariff on Chinese-made goods.

Plans to re-introduce electric-car production to Mini’s Oxford plant have been put on hold, but the brand says it still intends to eventually build battery-powered vehicles there once again, after the demise of the previous UK-made Mini Electric in 2023.

Mini reported 518 electric cars as sold in the first three months of this year, accounting for 37.2 per cent of its total 1394 deliveries.

The Countryman is the top seller (192), followed by the Aceman (173) and Cooper (153), which in electric form is a three-door only. Two in five examples of the three-door Cooper sold are electric.