Report: MINI Will Discontinue Several Models, Planning Mexico Factory

You may still remember several months ago Jim McDowell, VP of MINI USA, told US media that BMW management is considering stop making several models that do not sell well.

Today we got insider news indicating the departing models in the plan: the Paceman and also the Coupe (including the Roadster).

The decision is based on BMW’s current cost cutting initiative, and also MINI brand’s not-so-satisfactory sales performance this year (for 2012, MINI USA achieved a 15% growth; but it only saw a 0.5% enhancement in 2013). The MINI models being cut will be those with extremely low sales volume. For US market, only 3,262 units of Paceman, 2,540 units of the Coupe and 2,806 units of the Roadster were sold during 2013, compared to the 66,502 units for the whole MINI brand.

According to BMW Group, the MINI brand and compact BMW models have lower profit margin. Therefore, besides the discontinuation of several models, the future MINI models will share the same platform with BMW’s FWD cars. Currently all MINI products are made in UK, but BMW has already planned to leverage Mexico’s lower labor cost, set up a Mexico local plant to build MINI brand cars and also the BMW FWD models.