BMW has pulled the covers from the new Mini family, moving to offer fully electric for both the Mini Cooper and the Mini Countryman. That means there's now a choice of two body styles with the benefit of emission-free driving. There's also a slight change in name here, as the Mini Hatch name has been dropped in favour of Mini Cooper for the classic compact Mini design.

The first-generation of electric Minis has been popular and there are plenty out on the road, but it suffered in one significant area - electric range. With a range of only 145 miles, it only really appealed as an urban runaround, leaving longer range drivers with the dreaded range anxiety. The new Mini Cooper Electric tackles that head-on, with options for 190 or 250 miles of range. The latter is really competitive and will open up the Mini Electric to a new range of drivers.

It's not just the powertrain that's been revised, there's a sleeker exterior design, allowing the new Mini to make a departure from the design of the previous combustion models. When the previous generation of car was launched there was almost nothing to tell it apart from the petrol models, but now you have a more refined Mini Electric, with flush door handles, highlights with three unique signatures and little details that have been adjusted for a better-looking car.

One of the details here is the removal of the chrome - something that the original Minis carried plenty of, as well as the removal of the side badging. It's just a cleaner take on the Mini design, still recognisable, but more contemporary.

This extends to the interior too. I previously mentioned the shift in the interior design and this completely changes the experience. I criticised the interior display for several different models of Mini, it just wasn't a fusion of modern technology and heritage design cues that worked - whereas the new interior really does work.

Mini has stripped it down to a more minimalist interior, but positioned a 9.5-inch round OLED display in the centre of the dash. This is going to be dynamic, give you touch access to everything - including Android Auto and Apple CarPlay - as well as mapping and additional services. It's backed by an optional projector that can splay colour across the dash.

There is now no driver display, but there is the option for a heads-up display to put that important information in your eyeline, while there's the introduction of the Hey Mini personal assistant. I expect this to work in the same way as Hey BMW - which is actually a pretty useful system, able to give you information about the car, as well as control things like music.

There will be two configurations to choose from:

But it's not only the Mini Cooper that's getting a makeover, as the Mini Countryman now joins the fray as an all-electric model. The Countryman hangs on to its boxy profile, but grows a little to make this more attractive for those who might be considering a crossover or compact SUV. It will still be available with combustion engines, but the exciting part is that it will now be available with a choice of electric powertrain too.

What will include an ALL4 version, a dual-motor variant with 313hp, that will do 0-62mph in 5.6 seconds, while giving you a range of 269 miles. That might also appeal to those who want to venture slightly further off the road, with that larger space making this an attractive choice for dog walkers and so on. There is also optional adaptive suspension to adjust the height of the car.

The interior of the Mini Countryman gets a makeover too, again with that 9.5-inch circular OLED display, so a cleaner and more modern interior than the model it replaces, again using knitted recycled materials for the interior coverings and getting the same tech load-out as the Mini Cooper - including the voice assistant and new Mini 9 Operating System.

There will be two electric versions of the Mini Countryman to choose from:

The Countryman also benefits from 130kW charging, while the Mini Cooper remains at a 95kW maximum charging rate.

The new electric Mini models are expected to start shipping in spring 2024.