CLEAN MACHINE(some text hidden)

By Jonathan Crouch

Ten Second Review word count: 66

With BMW's plug-in hybrid petrol/electric 330e model, the conventional 320i variant's 184hp 2.0-litre petrol engine has been matched with an electric motor and a larger battery to create quite a package. There's the choice of either a saloon or a Touring estate and both can be specified with an xDrive powertrain. And this updated model range gains smarter looks and gets a much more sophisticated cabin.

Background word count: 108

Not everyone wanting futuristic engine technology wants their car to also look futuristic. To look like BMW's iX for instance. If you're buying from this Bavarian brand and want a petrol/electric powerplant, the 330e Plug-in hybrid offers a more subtle way to go. You get 37.3 miles of all-electric driving range when the car's charged up, which enables the creation of some impressive overall stats - up to 217.3mpg on the WLTP combined cycle and as little as 30g/km of WLTP-rated CO2. Those figures fall only fractionally with the Touring estate body style. Take some time to understand BMW's thinking here and it's hard not to be impressed.

Driving Experience word count: 198

With this mid-term update, nothing about the engineering of this 330e has changed; but nothing really needed to. At its original launch, this 'G20'-era 330e Plug-in hybrid model took a big step forward over its previous generation predecessor, the main difference being the measurement of all-electric driving range. This was rated at only 21 miles in the previous generation 3 Series plug-in but in this current 330e design, the addition of a larger 12.0kWh battery increased the range up to around 39 miles of zero emissions motoring when fully-charged. In other words, if you've a pretty typical daily commute, you might never have to fuel up this car to complete it. As you might expect, this kind of cleverness comes courtesy of a very advanced powerplant indeed, in this case a combination of the 184bhp 2.0-litre petrol unit from the 320i mated to an electric motor incorporating an 'XtraBoost' function. This can increase power to as much as 292hp, reducing the 62mph sprint time to just 5.8s. The hybrid system's extra weight drops maximum speed slightly over that of the ordinary 320i, but it's still rated at 143mph. The brand's xDrive 4WD system is available on this variant.