Jeep Renegade vs Mini Aceman

What's the difference?

Rugged, dependable and good off-road are the most obvious qualities of the Trailhawk. It stands out from the rest of the mini-SUVs by being able to do the S and the U with plenty of vigour.

It's just a shame that its on-road manners can't match that of its big brother, the Cherokee. Unless you're planning on proper off-roading, the Trailhawk might not be quite what you're looking for.

In many ways - range, performance and purchase price, for instance - the Mini Aceman is decent value, somewhat par for the course and would give its logical competition a proper marketplace run. But it’s better than that. The car’s big point of difference is its retro charm and the fact that it’s been tuned to be a fun drive rather than the non-confronting experience some carmakers strive for.

The performance is strong and the handling and steering serve up a bit of entertainment as well as giving the car a particular flavour. Which, as electric drivelines threaten to homogenise cars even further, must count for something.

Yes, some of what you’re paying goes towards that arguably nebulous notion of 'driving-spice' but once you’ve driven it, you’ll probably know what we’re talking about. A new car purchase is always special, so why not make that specialness last a bit longer with a car that will still be an entertainer long after the showroom thrill has worn off.

Meantime, it’s easy to see why Mini has already begun to run-out stocks of the cheaper E model. The SE still manages to play on that cheeky charm, but offers a more mature vehicle into the bargain. Not a bad trick, really.

Note: CarsGuide attended this event as a guest of the manufacturer, with accommodation and meals provided.

In what is absolutely not a coincidence, the Renegade immediately conjures up the Wrangler. Upright grille from the Willys Jeep (references abound here), round headlights, squared off wheel arches to mimic the Wrangler's guards, short overhangs and big rear view mirrors.

The 17-inch wheels look completely lost in the wheelarches which are even more cavernous owing to the Trailhawk's 50mm of extra ride height. The wheels are also a bit cheap looking but will probably survive the belting the car is intended to take.

Less rugged is the interior, despite a fairly self-conscious effort to make it look and feel chunky. The front seats are flat and unsupportive with the rears just as lacklustre making sure everyone is sliding around together. Luckily, front passengers get a dash-mounted grab handle.

It seems quite well put together, however, but with carpets and easily-marked plastics, you'll hope your passengers don't bring the mud in with them too often. And the "Since 1941" stamped into the steering wheel can go.

The dashboard is reasonably clear and has plenty of information to share via the screen between the dials but whoever thought marking the redline with a water splash graphic in bright orange should probably rethink their design decisions.

Storage is limited to two cupholders up front, door pockets in each door and nets on the front seat backs.

Though vaguely retro on the outside, the real nostalgia hit comes when you step inside the Aceman.

The huge, round central display that’s been associated with the Mini brand since day one, returns, but this time in 240mm, OLED screen form.

The display is also where you get to choose how the instrumentation and information looks, with configurable display incorporating a total of eight modes that alter the colours, sounds and visuals of the screen. Is it cool? Er, yes, actually.

There’s also the Mini personal assistant at your service to crank up the heat when you’re cold and switch on the air conditioning when you’re not (all voice activated) and the personal assistant can also learn stuff such as knowing particular navigation co-ordinates mean you’re at the entrance to an underground car-park, at which point the car will wind down the driver’s window so you can flash your credit card. If you think about it too hard, that’s going to be more creepy than cool for some of us.

The move to electrification, of course, is environmentally driven, so the Aceman’s ethos leans into that, too. There is, for example, a complete absence of leather or chrome, the alloy wheels contain as much as 70 per cent recycled material and are produced with renewable energy.

The floor mats, floor structure and interior surfaces are made from at least 90 per cent recycled polyester, and Mini claims a 98 per cent reduction in greenhouse gases compared with the same stuff made from leather.

Like the electric Mini Cooper launched last year, the Aceman is available in two versions with some important technical differences beyond the usual trim and equipment stuff most carmakers rely on to locate their models on the price totem.

The E (Electric) model is the most affordable five-door Mini EV with a price-tag if $51,990, driveaway. For that you get plenty of kit including adaptive cruise control, augmented reality navigation, heated front sports seats, a panoramic sunroof, sports steering wheel, 100-watt stereo and a cabin with splashes of nostalgia and piano black in equal measures.

There are also 19-inch alloy wheels and two-tone paint which teams a metallic body colour with a black roof. Wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto are included, too. So is dual-zone climate control, keyless entry and start, digital radio and folding exterior mirrors

The SE (Sports Electric) gets a different 19-inch alloy wheel, and adds an extra exterior colour as well as the lovely John Cooper Works front seats with electric adjustment, tinted glass, silver interior highlights, a Harman Kardon stereo upgrade and a different trim grade for the upholstery. All yours for $60,990 which sounds like quite a bit of extra money for those add-ons.

Until, that is, you realise the SE also packs a bigger punch with a bigger battery for more range and a perkier motor for better performance. Ah, so that’s where the money goes.

The catch is the E model is not long for the Australian market (I have never, till now, been invited to the launch of a car that was already in run-out). Local customers have voted with their feet and told Mini the more expensive SE is the one they want for a variety of reasons.

So, the E will continue to be sold here until stocks run out, probably around the end of 2025. And for that reason, the model we’ve driven here is the SE.

The Trailhawk is powered by Fiat's 2.4-litre four naturally-aspirated four-cylinder producing 129 kW and 230 Nm. Jeep reckons you'll get 7.5L/100km on the combined cycle. Our mostly city driving with a longish motorway run produced an 11.0L/100km average over a week.

The transmission is a nine-speed ZF automatic driving all four wheels.

The Trailhawk also has Jeep's five mode Selec-Terrain system which should cover pretty much every eventuality – Auto, Sport, Mud, Sand and, just for the Trailhawk, Rock. The Trailhawk is rated to tow 400kg unbraked and 907kg braked.

Things kick off the with the E model’s 135kW electric motor that also produces 290Nm of torque. That, says Mini, is enough to get it from rest to 100km/h in just under eight seconds. The motor is powered by a 38.5kWh battery living under the floor

The SE gets more battery and more power; 49.2kWh and 160kW, respectively, with 330Nm of torque on tap as well. The claimed 0-100km/h time falls almost a second to 7.1sec.

A single-speed reduction transmission is fitted and the electric motor in both models is a single one, driving the front wheels in true Mini tradition.

Of course, the other aspect of a Mini’s driving experience is its go-kart handling. To that end, the Mini EV is tuned for handling and response and features a MacPherson strut front end and a multi-link suspension arrangement at the rear. Potentially offsetting that sidestep, however, is the car’s heft which, at 1.6 tonnes, is very un-Mini.

The Trailhawk name suggest that things are going to get muddy – compared to the rest of the range, the range-topper rides 50mm higher and has exposed, easy-to-reach tow hooks in the fairly unlikely event you get stuck. It also has a 20:1 low-range crawl ratio and Active Drive 4x4 which means it can switch between front and all-wheel drive. It'll also wade through almost half a metre of water. It's a genuine mud-plugging proposition and will take on some much bigger machinery out in the bush.

On the road, where we spent all our time in the Renegade, it's not what you'd call particularly inspiring. There's a number of sources of noise that contribute to a less than quiet cabin and having to constantly correct your course at freeway speeds adds to the tiring nature of the Renegade.

It's much better at lower speeds, pottering around but then again, its nine-speed transmission needs a lot more work on the shift mapping because it seems to forget which gear it needs to be in when you sink the right foot. If you don't need the Trailhawk's extra off-road goodies, consider the 1.4 litre Limited or Longitude.

Much is made by Mini of its tradition of go-kart-like handling. And fair enough, it’s one of the things that allows the Mini brand to justify a premium price-point. And the good news is that this version, electric driveline notwithstanding, continues that theme. Position the manually-adjustable steering column to the right spot and suddenly, you’re in a car that encourages you to enjoy the drive.

The steering is light but accurate and is actually one of the better calibrated modern, electrically-assisted set-ups we’ve sampled for a while.

The only thing it doesn’t do is give the feeling that you’re sitting right over the physical point in the car that it rotates around when it corners.

Instead, you get the impression of there being a fair bit of Mini nose jutting out in front of you, with the driver’s seat positioned well back in the cabin.

Given the extra length of the five-door layout, that’s not completely unexpected, but it’s something drivers of short-wheelbase Minis will perhaps note.

What that doesn’t affect is the way the car feels tied down pretty well, but never degenerates into a crashing, buck-board. Despite the flat cornering, there’s always some suspension travel left, it seems, and the damping is clearly spot on as it arrests wheel movement without interfering with the fun.

There’s plenty of grip, too, and if you play the Mini game and hustle it through a few corners, the Aceman quickly reveals its fun side, which is precisely the point here.

The instant urge of an electric drivetrain is also very much in evidence and flooring the throttle pedal results in an instant surge of Newton-metres. I could do without the Warner Brothers soundtrack (and I did, by turning it off) but the acceleration itself is pretty impressive without being confronting (as some EVs with their brutal delivery can feel).

The only other thing we’d comment on is a level of tyre and road noise that is far from best in class. Okay, so a bit of tyre roar is okay, and it’s only audible at all because silence from traditional mechanical sources is such an EV thing.

Driver assistance packages abound in the Aceman, starting with adaptive cruise-control, parking assistance, rain sensing wipers and auto headlights, lane-keeping assistance, tyre pressure monitoring and a driver-attention monitor.

There’s autonomous emergency braking that works from 5.0km/h up and can detect cyclists and pedestrians. There’s also blind-spot monitoring, cornering brake control, stability control, rear collision prevention and rear cross-traffic alert and braking.

Inside, you’ll find front, side and head airbags as well as a centre airbag to prevent head clashes in the case of a side impact. There’s also a surround view camera system and rain-sensing wipers.

The Mini Aceman hasn’t been locally crash tested, but other variants of the same platform have been tested in Europe according to Euro NCAP protocols, in which they scored the full five stars for safety.