BMW 330e review: range, MPG, CO2 & charging

In order to make the most of the BMW 330e’s plug-in hybrid (PHEV) powertrain, you should make sure that it’s always fully charged up before you set off. Like all PHEVs, the 330e works best if you tend to do short and medium-length trips where you can rely on the electric motor to do most of the work, as for longer trips a diesel is more efficient.

BMW 330e range, MPG & CO2 emissions

According to BMW’s official figures, the 330e emits between 31 and 36g/km of CO2 and its electric range is up to 38 miles, depending on the exact specification you choose. That’s a marginal improvement over the pre-facelift version of the car, which could do 37 miles, but we still wouldn’t expect to see anything close to that in the real world without concerted effort – about 30 miles would be safe to bet on from a full charge.

Motorway miles and cold weather, as with all electric models, will reduce your range the most, so if you stick to local roads with low speed limits, you could probably get 35 miles out of the battery on a good day. That should be plenty for most people’s commutes, but is still less than what’s possible in plug-in hybrid versions of the Mercedes C-Class and Volvo S60.

In our experience, the 330e returns around 40-45mpg fuel economy in varied use (including some motorway mileage) when the petrol engine is running. That’s good to hear given several manufacturers – including BMW – are vastly cutting down their diesel fleets, leaving plug-in hybrids as some of the most economical motorway cars available.