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      05-07-2019, 02:09 PM   #1
Jason
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2020 BMW 330e PHEV First Drive Review by Roadshow

Roadshow shares its first drive review of the BMW 330e (see specs)

Full review: https://www.cnet.com/roadshow/news/2...-drive-review/

Some highlights:

A brief drive near Munich, Germany, revealed that the 2020 BMW 330e plug-in hybrid is still a 3 Series through and through.

Being that the badge says 3 Series, BMW did not skimp on sportiness for the 330e and added a special driving mode called XtraBoost. It's one step above the regular Sport mode and gives a 41-horsepower power boost from the electric motor. It'll get the car from rest to 62 miles per hour in just 6 seconds. BMW representatives say you can use XtraBoost for up to 10 seconds at a time; in real-world street driving, they say, it's unlikely you'd ever "run out" of the power boost unless the battery were depleted.

XtraBoost also dials up some sportier sound enhancement, more aggressive throttle response, quicker downshifts from the automatic transmission and some unique graphics on the full-digital instrument cluster. The transformation is dramatic, and not only because of the orange-tinged gauges and rortier sounds.

Throttle response in XtraBoost is so strong, even at not-legal-in-the-US autobahn speeds, that the 330e feels like it has a much larger-displacement engine. Swapping back and forth between XtraBoost and the standard Sport mode really makes the difference evident: The car feels like it punches way above its weight class thanks to the instant responses and always-on torque delivery of the electric motor. If it weren't for pesky things like "traffic" and "optimizing efficiency," I'd recommend driving the 330e in this mode all the time. Read the rest at Roadshow
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