The G20 BMW 330e plug-in hybrid first made its debut
in November last year, and has finally gone on sale in Europe. If you’ve been
following the news, there’s not much about the new 330e that you don’t already
know, except BMW revealed that the car will get a trailer coupling system with
electrically pivoting pitch ball, with a maximum trailer load of 750 kg.
Other than that, it’s the same car altogether, so
let’s give it a quick refresher. The 330e is primarily powered by the ubiquitous
B48 2.0 litre four-cylinder engine, and on its own makes 184 hp and 300 Nm of
torque (same as the 320i). However, it gets augmented with an electric motor
that produces 109 hp, allowing for a combined system output of 252 hp
and 420 Nm of torque.
That’s the same as the outgoing F30 330e model, but
for the first time there’s now an XtraBoost feature that delivers an extra 41 hp; available in Sport mode) of accelerative boost for 10 seconds. This
brings the total amount of available power up to 292 hp, and this feature is
standard for all variants of the G20 330e.
Performance-wise, it does the century sprint in 6.0
seconds, before topping out at 230 km/h. Average fuel consumption is rated at
1.7 litres per 100 km. The car comes with a larger 12 kWh lithium-ion battery
that provides an all-electric driving range of up to 66 km (cruises up to 140
km/h), although the fitment of the battery compromises boot space slightly –
the 330e gets 375 litres instead of the standard 480 litres of space.
Other model-specific features include an
“emotionally engaging drive system note,” as well as acoustic pedestrian
protection. This system uses an exterior speaker to generate an unmistakable
sound for electrified BMWs, although it’s unclear to us what the sound actually
sounds like in real life.
