Absolutely loved this video. After ordering a 330e this week I’ve watched just about every bit of content on the car available on YT. Most videos were simple repeats of the same content. This was very different and awesome!
Plug in hybrids like this are the worst of both worlds. More expensive and complicated than standard ICE vehicles. Almost zero benefit of battery and hybrid technology. More weight, less storage. BMW have lost the plot with their drivetrain offerings. This model is significantly more expensive than the Tesla Model 3 SR+ while being far less technologically advanced.
I really wished my science teacher was as good as you at explaining the magic of internal combustion engine. Love your channel and I wish you all the best from UK.
@@AutoExpertJC It would be if the active and neutral cables weren't side by side. You effectively have two coils opposing each other for a net effect of almost nothing.
@@AutoExpertJC It is, but not in the charging cable. The leads in the cable are so close together that the magnetic fields their currents produce almost perfectly cancel out. The Maxwell's equations printed on your t-shirt do say that.
Excellent review on this BMW330 E, probably the best explanation on how this is the right car for those looking in this area. Nice pictures too, they always help!
I help build hybrids and have had 2 of them in the past. The thing that no one tells you in the show room is that in electric mode there is no heating in the vehicle without the petrol engine working for at least a couple of minutes. OK in Australia, maybe not such a problem but in the UK it is. Thanks to a recent "technology connections" video there is a solution. The air conditioning compressor is electrically operated not via a belt and pulley. So why don't they use this compressor in reverse as a heater which would require a valve. I drive a diesel and will do so until it destroys itself (400000km and counting) but thought I'd mention it anyway.
@@stevelloyd5785 good day mate, not sure where you got Scotland from ? Although I'm less than 100 miles from the scottish border and most of us in this part of northern england dont class our self as English (as in southern shandy drinking snowflakes from south of england) we are actually NORTHUMBRIANS, the English government (Torys) can't stand us and we are in our 11th year of financial cut backs more so than any part of southern England.
Plug-in hybrids really are a good compromise between gas and electric. I bought a slightly used '17 Ford Fusion Energi Titanium (Mondeo) 4 years ago for basically half the new sticker price. My overall average fuel economy from blending the electric and hybrid modes over the last ~90,000 miles (144,000 km) hovers around 60 MPG or 25.5 KPL. It's nice to almost never breathe my own exhaust, and there's something special about cruising slowly and silently in a national park with the windows down in electric mode. Also, if I have the battery depleted at the top of a mountain, there's enough capacity to use only electromagnetic regenerative braking the whole way down the mountain. No friction braking required.
Great video. Ran a 225xe loaner for a few weeks and it was ideal for a 30km round trip commute purely on electric. Charged at work for free and also did a 450 km round trip on petrol at around 5.2l/100 (45mpg). It was the M sport model and it was bloody quick when you gave it a bootful. Would have one tomorrow but for the price!
Fantastic video John. Great explanation of all the engine and fuel types. Love your style and delivery. I was wondering what is your take on MG HS Plug in hybrid? It is $8000 expensive than its ICE counterpart too, but with more power of course when you have the ice and electric motor combo
Great video John - as always! I've a 3 pointed suppository C350e here in the UK. As you say in the real world the ICE will have to do some of the work in real driving conditions. The trouble is that the petrol ICE is off and on for lots of very short bursts of power. It never gets the engine up to temperature and so a lot of the emissions controls never really work as they would on an ICE only vehicle. I'm The told by the MB technicians that the crankcase breather won't open on short journeys and the engine oil becomes steady diluted with unburnt petrol. The oil looks like whipped cream after a short while. Obviously crap from a lubrication point of view. I have to do one commute a week in ICE only mode (sport mode) to cook out all the crap otherwise you're looking at changing the oil every month. Just thought I'd add that warning. Hopefully BMW have got it sorted. I wanted the BMW 530e but there were no estate models available at the time. I miss my old 530D estate.
Thanks for that Gary...I too have a C350e, but wasn’t across the potential oil dilution issue. I have a 24km commute each weekday and in the cooler weather the battery is now giving me around 17km, so i may be getting enough ICE operation.... I will also query the dealer when next in for a service.
I really appreciate your effort on works like this. It really is very informational for us and because it's from an unbiased source it makes it all the more valuable..
Great comprehensive and helpful review. Definitely worth looking for dealer "preregistered" cars, here in the UK there are loads available in various colours / options and with significant savings.
Good Show & Comments, John - I'll put in my 2 pennies :) If you ask about battery life & warranty - You can't afford it?... Does one run on a flat tyre - Unwittingly? ATM there's a waiting list, for many a car brand - Factory order - Advance deposit - No neg, if buyers are queueing? 2nd Law of Thermodynamics... Nothing Worthwhile in Life is Free? :) 'Cept air & sunshine? Then Window Tint costs? Pl do a show 'bout window tint? It's more than just UV - There's also Total light, incl Infra-red... Nano/ Ceramic/ Graphene tints...
Here in South Africa a naughty young dude was stopped at a roadblock during Covid lockdown... When the cops opened up the boot, there were two beautiful girls hiding inside! 😀😀😀😁😂😃😃👍👍
Great stuff John. Straight down the line and hugely informative as always. Listened on a run into the city from upper north shore and it went in a flash.
I'd like to see someone actually measure inductance on a coiled electrical cord. I'm sure if I spent a few minutes googling I could probably find that, but the electrical engineer in me notes that a typical electrical cord has a hot conductor carrying current in one direction and a neutral conductor carrying current in the opposite direction right next to it. The induced magnetic fields should mostly cancel each other out leading to relatively little inductive effect from coiling such a cord. It won't completely cancel out, because there will be some leakage inductance due to the opposing fields being separated by the thickness of the conductors and their insulation. I'd also guess that the leakage inductance would be larger in heavier gauge wires, but still, for the kind of cabling in that EVSE, still probably minimal and the more I think through it, the more skeptical I am that a coiled cord poses any problem due to any inductance that may add to the circuit. It's worth noting that the configuration of the conductors in a coiled cord are similar to a bifilar winding which is specifically intended to minimize inductance in a coil of wire.
Hi John I like your new house (shown around the 8 minute mark)! It looks much easier for manoeuvring a trailer - though I am sure you must have plebs to do that for you now as well. Keep up the awesome content.
Great video as usual John. Well explained and clears up the issue of what exactly is a PHEV. They look interesting but having just got reamed again on a service and repair on my car engine I'm thinking that having an electric motor plus an ICE means once the warrantee period is over you're going to have the worst of both worlds in maintenance and repairs. Everything breaks eventually and having more stuff to go wrong means more $$$ down the drain. Of course this only applies to people who keep their cars beyond the warrantee period. I'm one of those in that I drive a very fuel efficient car and I keep my cars for absolutely as long as possible by keeping them properly maintained. This is the "greenest" approach to motoring. More so than going out to buy an EV to "Save the planet".
Great video,certainly will make you rethink your next vehicle,only problem I see with EVs in straya is the amount of houses that don't have garages or driveways especiallyin older suburbs,how they can charge up their cars
Ordered one in January for a May delivery. My motivation for this over 330i is to reduce air pollution. It has more than enough ev range to get me around daily. I splashed out on almost all of the options however, didn’t order the sensatec dashboard or m seatbelts. Also have enough lube...
Well done, sir. Probably the most entertaining but informative car video I have watched. And I've watched tons! If my college professors were this captivating, I might have gotten better grades! lol Subscribed!
Well done dear John! A lot of useful information. A couple of points to add: 1. The performance won't be reduced even when the battery is shown zero as the software will reserve the the minimum for startup and acceleration. Once cruising, the car actually run on battery safe mode (not shown) to top up the battery to minimum. I believe the main battery is charged by the main motor in regenerative mode which is very fast. It makes a big difference than those cars using mild hybrid which use the big alternator to do regenerative braking. I have tried a few. 2. As there is a battery safe mode you can use for better economy even you can't find charging station. You can use the battery safe mode on the free way to save /charge the battery to the level you think you will use in the next town for pure electric mode as it's using less fuel to charge on the freeway. I've found this quite effective. 3. Negotiating the new car price is an interesting experience. If you know how to calculating the luxury car tax/LCT, stamp duty and GST, you can download all the itemised prices from the REDBOOK and avoid including items can be bought later in the group paying LCT and stamp duty, for example, functional software upgrades, services or extended services etc, and asking hard for a discount (up to 10%?) for the price group subject to LCT . Apparently, the 3 series is right at the zone of the LCT playing up.
Cars in Australia must be a lot more expensive than in Canada. I think a reasonably equipped 330e in Canada may MSRP at around $75K CAD, and appears to be less than $3K more than a 330i.
The latest few posts have been very good, more information and presented calmer... I like this new to the point format, with really good scamatics. Also your looking well, what's your health secret as to fitness and weight loss?
Really informative video John, it should be part of the school curriculum and also played on a loop in all car dealerships (imagine that 🤔). Need to watch remainder of your video later though as I'm 'working from home' and shouldn't be watching Auto Expert instead 😆
There is no induction issue coiling power cables. As both conductors are side by side any induction cancels itself out. The only issue of coiling cables can be if the cable does get hot, the heat is confined to a small space which can cause a problem.
Should do another vid on Tesla semi 🚛 shitbox isn’t allowed here to wide the fanboys are butthurt you can’t just send a truck from overseas and put it straight on our roads here would fall apart anyway I think a nerd designed them 😁 Local truck makers know how to design proper Rigs for Aussie conditions. 10-4.
The US model 330e is made in Mexico now. Overall enjoyed the thorough analysis. I didn't know what to make of the summary but it seems like you pooped all over the idea of plug-in hybrids all for what people think of you.
You changed my mind when you told me of all the 'options' including paint, LOL. I will just buy a car from Toyota or Honda and skip all this Options bullshit. Im OUT!
Great review. I am 4 weeks into my ownership experience with my 330e. It has the adaptive dampers with M-sport package. Beautiful car. I am not sure if you realised when you drove your review car, the car continues to regenerate and electric assist in hybrid mode, even with a discharged battery. It essentially it behaves like a Toyota hybrid in this situation. When driving on the highway in steady state driving with a depleted battery, I average 4L/100km. We have a late model Corolla hybrid as well. The fuel consumption is pretty much line ball in this use case.
That bit up the front of the video where I described regenerative braking explicitly stated that all hybrids (PHEV and regular hybrid) do this, as well as EVs. So, yes - I do realise this. Glad you like the car.
Is there anything done to warm up/keep the motor warm? say I got in one cold winters morning, drove like miss daisy was in the back for 15km then flattened the foot to get around a truck. Does the ICE start up and go to full throttle from cold?
reviewing ze chermans? yeesss!? ..nooo! lol expensive and disposable. and that fuhrer mustache grille..yesss lmao. seriously, that seems to be a real factoid. its designed after Him lol. but you need to review something other than the reliable asian makes i guess. ...agreed on the old analogue fart. makes the gauge cluster look cheap somehow when there are no 3d parts popping up out of there. i think some out there agree, like lexus, they have LCD and 3D and mechanical aspects combined. ...lmao humanitarian aid from the death star; yup. ...
uv protection glazing seems like a neat option i gotta say. for the protection of the interior primarily but then again its a car that doesn't last so who cares? i guess it'll make a nice lawn ornament after the powertrain craps out and you can just sit in it with uv protection. ...true the only good part about hybrids is cleaner air. they make no money saving sense except maybe for taxis.
Dacia duster 4x4, 1,5L turbo diesel for 12 000€ gets you free tire pressure sensor and and free painting whatever you want. BMW 330e car for 80 000€ dude you gotta pay 2000 for paint and 500 for sensor which say I'm at 2,5 bar right now 🤣😂🤣 Tick few boxes which don't do much and you can get full SUV 4x4 turbo diesel for that money... And it's probably gonna be more reliable than BMW because there is not much stuff to fail. There is engine and gearbox and few wheels and some galvanized metal to keep that together
@@Meeliskt77 didn't know that. I thought it's just system which is based on program which includes pressure sensors and it's cheaper to put sensor than reprogram whole thing.
I know Mitsubishi would be more "Mainstream" than BMW being "Luxury". But your review of Outlander PHEV (2+ years ago?) purely in terms of the PHEV operation was considerably less complementary than this diatribe. BTW I bought the Mitsubishi anyway in spite of your criticism of it
Series hybrid vs Parallel hybrid. In a series hybrid the internal combustion engine basically works a generator (or range extender), the I.C.E is not (mechanically) connected to the wheels, all propulsion is done by the electric power train. In a parallel hybrid the both the I.C.E and electrical propulsion system are connected to the wheels and can work independently.
MMMMM, BMW is off my dream list. Yes beautiful cars to drive, when new. Costs of repairs is legendary, servicing is not for anyone on minimum wages. Then if you flick through google, non of them are designed to last 100k miles. I have seen first hand European car makers fetish for fragile plastic fittings that dont go the distance. A hybrid BMW sounds like an oxymoron. People will buy them I am sure. Prestige always trumps sense.
I take issue with the extra cost, cause with $0.12/kwhr off peak or $0.09 if solar in daytime, 20k of km/yr is almost $2k savings. 4 to 5 yr payback and EV bliss! Charging rate seems similar to my Outlander PHEV. I love its drive train, can't give up EV now, but having paid $45k less than the 330e, it's not pure delight for long trips.
This was a fantastic video. I've owned my 2006 325I for 16 years. Thinking about an upgrade made had me looking at the 330e versus the 330i. The virtue signaling aspect of the 330e was enough to turn me off. The further information on BMW options was also gold, but one that was pretty well aware of. Thanks John I'm saving me from a big mistake.
Hello John, would you buy one for half price? I am so turned off by Euro cars and wonder vs Japanese cars would you spend your hard earned *digital cash on a ticking time bomb? Just wondering. I won't. Would you?
Opening the boot manually? Ohw nooo's , the horror. LOL And WTF? 10 grand for delivery??? Damn, plating it in gold, they are? Did they not have already a BMW i3 with range-extender?
We looked at a Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV, which is one of the first of that type of vehicle. What turned me off is the cost, around $23,000 more than the Subaru XV 2.0i-S and the questionable claims about the fuel economy/distance in EV mode. I took the demo model from the dealership to a nearby highway and back. It used a fair bit more fuel than suggested. It turns out once you hit 80kph, it becomes a full-time ICE vehicle. It's probably similar with the BMW. I did a few calculations and if I drove it from my home to my mum's place, about 90km each way, I would do 10km of EV driving, followed by 78km of inefficient ICE drive, followed by 2km of EV driving at the other end and then the reverse coming home. Now I get I usually only do that once a month or so, but my wife takes the highway for about half the 30-35km round trip on the weekly shopping trip. We I let the salesperson down gentle on the deal, he really did "seem" like a nice bloke (and not a ming-mole in sight), he suggested I would regret it the first time I had to go to the petrol station. I really don't! 😁
I bought a 330e last September. I chose this car because 95% of my journeys are less than 8Km (100% at the moment because of the lock-down). ICE cars do not like short journeys. The DPFs clog on Diesels and the exhausts rust on petrol, even stainless steel exhausts have normal steel inside, the cat ends up rattling around. I like a lot of tech in a car but with BMW virtually everything is an extra. You cannot buy a high spec model with all the tech pre installed. The car I had before this was a three pronged swastika C250 AMG Line Premium Plus. At the time, 5 years ago, it had, as standard, all the tech I wanted. That meant when I came to sell it I got a good price for it. I paid £31k for it new and sold it after 4.5 years for £20k to a dealer, probably could have got more selling it privately. I wanted a new 330e but the waiting list was 9 to 12 months for the spec I wanted so I ended up buying a demonstrator 6 months old with 4000Km on it. Not quite the spec I wanted but close enough. New my BMW would have cost £50k, but because you don't get your money back for the extras, that's just lost, I paid £35k for the car. I am very pleased with the 330e it came with half a tank of petrol I added a few litres and after driving 2500Km it is still over half full as I very rarely use the ICE. My only criticism is the electric range is nowhere near the advertised 58Km. Fully charged the best I have seen is 43Km.
The option laden Bimmer Lecky costs close to what my incoming LC200 is. Before I add the essentials to better bash the wilderness into submission, of course. I'll use a lot more fuel, but my Landbruiser will be still keeping on for a very long time. BM may have a 20-25 year horizon on its battery like the LC, but maybe not. Two final things - the depreciation on the Bimmer will boost its TCO, and you miss out on piloting a 2.7+ tonne middle finger past the eco virtue signallers. That's worth the price of the diesel alone... FWIW, I live in the country so no city lungs were damaged in the making of this smile. If I tire of my Stinger GT, a BMW petrol might be a goer. I like BMW, especially the ones with M in the genes.. Enjoyed the vijayo mate, and respect the effort you went to researching it.
I can't believe it's 2021 and we're still doing this dance with the dealerships. I'm disappointed in humanity. Very disappointed. Yes, for other things too. But this: Why are we still doing this?! Sigh.
In an abstract kind of way I see this as a modern "dual fuelled" vehicle and I can see parallels to my ownership of a Pajero with LPG. Ive owned this vehicle for eons and enjoyed the discount fuel costs, which are becoming more expensive by the day, but there have been downsides to the equation. Firstly, the extra tank of fuel adds weight to the vehicle which would be an added drain on the Pajero's already non existent petrol efficiency. I imagine that the extra 300kg(?) for the battery pack would do the same to the 330e's petrol efficiency. Secondly, my LPG tank etc not only takes up some of my vehicle's load capacity but it's storage area also. The batteries would do the same to the BMW, although storage may not be as critical for a sedan. Thirdly, as John Cadogan has stated before, any extra weight carried by vehicles, as in the 330e's battery pack, will inevitably cause other components to wear out sooner, so brakes etc may need maintaining more often. Last of all, in my Pajero having two sources of power i.e. the petrol and LPG means I have twice as many parts that can require maintenance. For my long term ownership this has still worked out well for me financially as I have received rebates and reduced fuel costs for 13 years, but I have had to replace the LPG tank after 10 years and a regulator once. Fortunately for me, this was not at luxe cruiser prices but it leaves me wondering how I would've faired if I needed to maintain a "duel fuelled" Beemer by comparison. This doesn't just go for the 330e it would be a consideration for me on any "duel fuelled / duel powered" vehicle purchase into the future. I do understand that many people looking to purchase a BMW 330e may not have the same financial constraints that I have, nor want to keep a vehicle for years.
If I may add just a small piece of information on something you touched upon but didn't fully address. I used to own this very same car and now I have the Touring version with xDrive (because...reasons). The thing that many people don't understand about this car, and BMW is not very good at explaining either, is that the numbers given for the range are neither right nor wrong. One way of using this car is by driving it in electric mode, which forces it to use only the battery until it runs out of energy. In this mode, you get anything from 55 to around 25 Km of range, depending greatly on the outside temperature and how you drive it --at city speeds during warm days you'd get the most. However, that's not the end of the story. Once the car has depleted the energy in the battery, it'll change to Hybrid mode and it'll continuously recharge it and switch to using the battery energy every time it has enough and gets the chance. A typical long distance trip in this car results in you driving about 1/3 of the distance on electricity, which for a 500Km trip means about 170Km, which is way more than the total range advertised by BMW. For this reason, the advertised range is neither right nor wrong. It is correct in the summer if you drive at around city speeds in Electric Only Mode, and it's wrong in the winter (for the worse) or during long distance trips (for the better), it all depends on how you look at it. Last summer I averaged 21.2 Km/l on a 900Km trip. Here you can see screenshots and more info about that trip: g20.bimmerpost.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1745449
not that I would ever purchase a Big Money Waster but the technology is good that said not right now as it's still needs time to mature in the market place, I am looking at my 2022/3 options from now and PHEV tech looks like it's going to where it's at in the next 2 to 3 years over conventional hybrid tech, I think "Atkinson cycle" ICE combined with PHEV tech will start to dominate that said in changing to this type of technology you would also have to invest some serious cash in terms of your properties "mains power" set up, hence why it will still need a few more years to mature and be accepted by the consumer market, Continue the great content, also when are you / or will you return to "live" broadcast shows?
This BMW is such a nice car, so beautiful, and with so many features. Why isn't it a Toyota with its legendary reliability and fantastic resale value? If one could combine that, in one car, it would be one hell of a car.
Hi John, Looking for something stimulating to watch, I scrolled through my list of subscriptions and found you and this latest video. Since you’re being very explicit about the fuel used in an ‘internal combustion engine’, I figured you would do the same for a battery. You accurately said the internal combustion engine runs on “liquid hydro carbons”. However, you went on to say a battery “holds electrons” which is not strictly true. A battery stores ‘chemical energy’ that produces those afore mentioned electrons. The “holds electrons” just didn’t sit right with me after you mentioned liquid hydro carbons. Thank you. John B.
@@AutoExpertJC Thank you John. Except there is no chemical reaction until one connects the battery to a circuit. Ergo, the battery does not contain electrons. I wouldn’t have mentioned it, but since you mentioned using LHC as fuel as opposed to petrol, diesel, compressed natural gas and liquid petroleum gas, I thought it only fair, to the battery manufactures, to mention a battery does not hold electrons. One can’t buy a box of electrons, put them into a packet and call it a battery. I will add the following. Being specific and talking about lithium ion batteries, (so I’m not in your next ‘nuts’ mention) one must first separate the electron from the lithium atom by applying a positive potential to the battery, more commonly known as ‘charging the battery’. Only then do we have an electro-chemical potential ready to discharge the electrons through an external circuit. Semantics I know. People don’t fill their vehicles with liquid hydro carbons, they fill with petrol or diesel… People don’t want batteries for containers of electrons, they want batteries for electricity storage.
Yes I must agree with John B. It is a similar fallacy that generators create electrons, they actually act like an electron pump in the same way as a liquid pump pushes liquid around in pipes. Electrons are shunted against each other and move related slowly certainly not at around the speed light, however the response is instantaneous. An analogy is the physical entertainment toy with suspended steel balls in a row touching each other when one end ball is lifted and then released hitting the next ball the energy immediately transmitted to the end ball which immediately is propelled into the air absorbing the energy imparted. A battery does similar with chemical energy dissipating energy by pushing electrons through a electrical circuits with an electrical load.
Only thing I found disappointing about the Ioniq PHEV is that driving in regen down a long doesn't recharge the main battery, only the drivetrain battery. The same I think is true for the BMW i3 REx. This is a design error. If you are going down a mountain and can gain 20km more from the regen this is going to be a pretty big saving.
I'm doubting that the alternator is used to recharge the HV battery at all, even in sport mode. The alternator is presumably similar to that on any other ICE car in that it's designed to produce about 14V output and I'm assuming that the HV battery is probably nominally around 400V. Even if it's a high current alternator, converting that 14V output to 400V is going to lose a bit of energy both in the boost conversion from 14V to 400V as well as the pulley losses and more. It also means adding a relatively high power boost converter into the car that has no other real use - added expense and more things to break. More likely, if it really does seem to be recharging the battery while driving in sport mode, my guess is that they're actually using the traction motor in regen mode and doing the recharging that way. This wouldn't require any additional hardware to be added for the purpose. The motor is already designed to operate at the higher voltages required to charge the battery, to likely less losses in voltage conversion there, too. The mechanical linkages between the traction motor and drive train are also likely less lossy than the belt drive to that alternator. That would seem a far more sensible way to do this than using a 14V alternator to recharge the HV battery.
Of all the german carmakers, BMW is the only remaining one with a light and indicator combination that isn't bloody stupid. I.e., that doesn't turn off the DLR when you use the turn signals.
All those wonderful warnings and logos are not BMW's idea. The global safety standards they are required to adhere to demand them. There may be some flexability in how the standards areinterpreted
Another reason they will keep the battery just above empty is so you don't have to run the engine when doing a 3 point turn or moving a 2mph in stop and go traffic, the circumstances where petrol/diesel engines are least efficient and where electricity thrives
What I don't understand is, how is it that Mercedes can win the drivers and constructors champion in F1 year after year after year with their hybrid powertrain for the silver arrows team, yet the TripleProng hybrid roadcar is nowhere to be seen?
I just got one of this. If you think infrastructure is not ready there in australia you can imagine it is even worse here in southern mexico, but I charge it on my home and have the fuel for those long trips with no chargers nearby.
It is my understanding that pressure monitoring is mandatory with run-flats, for safety reasons - otherwise, the driver may not be aware they have a puncture. I could be wrong though.
Very interesting, and thanks John. I infer that this car has a conventional internal combustion drivetrain, with electric motor, regen and decent battery added on? I wonder if you have a view on the drivetrain often used on ships and locomotives where the combustion engine does nothing other than power a big generator to power electric drive motors, or in the case of a plug in hybrid, to charge the battery as needed? Cheers.
