The Plug-In Hybrid Car Hits Its Stride, Just in Time to Die
With Tesla fever running high, middle-ground vehicles are becoming irrelevant.
About 18 months ago, Bayerische Motoren Werke AG started selling a plug-in hybrid version of its midsize sedan for the first time. The 530e is a more expensive, bulkier version of the German automaker’s sports sedan. It goes about 30 miles on a charge and tops out at an Autobahn-friendly 146 miles per hour. It’s the kind of hybrid that hyper-milers could have only imagined back when Toyota unveiled the original Prius two decades ago.
The BMW 530e is more opulent than a Tesla and arguably more pleasant to drive, but customers don’t seem to care. Tesla’s all-electric Model 3 started trickling to buyers in late 2017 and, in the past year, has outsold the BMW by about 15-to-1.