When you explain cars for a living, a car you can’t explain is kinda fun. I have no idea what Mini is trying to do here. I don’t know what an “ace man” is. But I like the 2025 Mini Aceman already, and I haven’t even met him.

Yes, we’re gonna anthropomorphize this one. Not sure what else to do with it.

Mini doesn’t know what its newest car is, either. In press materials, they call the Aceman “the first crossover model for the premium small car segment,” as if luxury compact crossovers weren’t common. But this isn’t exactly one of those, so we’ll give them points for trying.

Whatever It Is, It Fits In a Mini Showroom

The Aceman is something like a subcompact luxury hatchback. It doesn’t exactly replace the recently canceled Clubman in the Mini lineup. But Mini salespeople will probably park it where they used to park the Clubman because it’s gotta go somewhere, and it’s kinda like one in a way.

It’s larger than a Cooper and smaller than a Countryman. Mini hasn’t put a price on it, but we imagine it will slot in between them on that measure, too.

Oh, and Mini hasn’t officially said the Aceman is bound for U.S. dealers. But there’s probably a reason Mini reached out to American journalists with details on the new car, so let’s assume it’s headed stateside.

Enough about what it isn’t.

All-Electric, Range May Be a Problem

The Aceman is all-electric. In Europe, it’s available with 184 or 218 horsepower, both models only in front-wheel drive (FWD). But we suspect only the latter will come to the States.

Mini says the less-powerful version gets up to 310 km (192 miles) of range in European testing. Euro tests tend to produce longer figures than the formula America’s EPA uses to calculate range. So, that model likely doesn’t go far enough between charges to be competitive here. The more powerful version, with up to 406 km (252 miles) in European testing might work as a runabout here.

Eight driving modes give you a lot of flexibility in how you’d like your car to feel from behind the wheel.

Lego Look and… Cloth Dashboard?

The Aceman is funky looking. A more angular take on the current simple-shapes Mini design language, it seems like a Mini built from Lego. Black plastic body cladding gives Mini an excuse to call it a crossover, but that ground clearance isn’t going to fool you.

Inside, it uses the extremely simple design scheme common to current Minis. Nearly everything runs through a large, quirkily-circular touchscreen. Patterned cloth-like materials cover places you expect to see upholstery and some you don’t.

Even the dashboard, Mini says, “is covered with a knitted material in which the lower color shines through the upper one. This gives the interior a homely character with starkly accentuated color contrasts.”

It’s made of “easy care” recycled polyester, Mini says, so staining your dashboard shouldn’t be a new worry in your life.

Mini has always gone all-in on personalization more than any other automaker. Who else lets you pick your mirror cap color, for instance? That ethos carries over into the AI age through the Mini Personal Assistant.

It, the company says, “learns continuously through dialogue and is able to take on day-to-day tasks on repeated routes. Based on geo-based data, for example, the vehicle can identify the entrance to a multi-story car park and automatically open the window.”