BMW 330e Plug-in Hybrid – because a Tesla Model 3 is YEARS away

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The BMW 330e plug-in hybrid features in a new BMW advert as the German car maker promises electric car driving, years before the Tesla Model 3 arrives.

Now car makers have fully worked out how to game governments’ CO2 based taxation thresholds – and the official economy tests – we’re starting to see plug-in hybrids arriving from ‘Premium’ car makers to entice business owners, in particular, in to cars that can drive, some of the time, on electric power.

Those premium plug-in hybrids now include the BMW 330e, revealed last year at the Frankfurt Motor Show, which comes with the appealing combination of a BIK rate that costs taxpayers pennies a month to run, the promise of official economy around 140mpg (an average of 40mpg is more likely), a 25 mile EV range (more like 15 if you’re lucky) and 0-62mph in 6.1 seconds.

Certainly for now, a plug-in hybrid is by far the most economical way to run a company car, and is the only real way you can enjoy EV motoring, albeit only some of the time, in a compact premium car, at least until the Tesla Model arrives.

The arrival in the real world of the Tesla Model 3 could be a game changer (although we really need a disruptive change in battery technology for EVs to be unstoppable), but that’s going to be some way off. So BMW are using their latest advert for the 330e (below) to give the Model 3 a bit of a poke.

The advert shows a forlorn man sitting on his front step watching his neighbours over the road unplugging their 330e before leaving the drive, with the voice over saying “You’ll wait, and wait and wait some more before that electric car company’s new model ever arrives”. The voiceover then goes on to say: “But the BMW 330e is here now. It’s the car you’ve been waiting for, but without the wait”.

And with prices for the BMW 330e plug-in around the £35k mark, it’s probably around the same price the Tesla Model 3 will be in the UK when it arrives, probably in 2019, assuming Tesla manage to build it.

BMW 330e Plug-in vs Tesla Model 3 Advert