With Great Britain officially no longer a part of the EU, many local companies are facing difficulties planning their further interaction with the rest of Europe. For one, BMW Group has just announced that it would have to push back the long-awaited refresh of the Mini range.
This means that we will be seeing the current generation in showrooms for a while longer, which is hardly a good sign. In particular, the Mini hatchback was introduced all the way back in 2013 and went on sale in 2014. All modern Mini vehicle come based on the UKL1 platform that BMW uses for its front-wheel drive compacts.
That said, it would be improper to blame Brexit for everything. The company admits that designing new cars takes substantial investment, which can get prohibitively expensive with the rapid electrification trends of today. Compact cars keep losing their customer base as people increasingly get into the SUV market. As a result, small urban vehicles are just not profitable enough for most companies to bother producing. This was the reason Opel discontinued its Karl and Adam hatchbacks; Mini might as well follow its example eventually.
In 2019, the demand for Mini cars fell 4.1% to 346,639 units sold. Year-over-year sales dropped 18% in December. Since the British marque also has a factory in Netherlands, it would need to invest additional money into upgrading that production site before launching the next generation of cars.