BMW 330e Touring vs Peugeot 508 PSE SW

Can Peugeot’s new performance station wagon beat the lease champion?

Peugeot versus BMW, that’s not a test you’ve seen many times before. The fact that it takes the most expensive and most powerful car of the French brand to attract the two manufacturers shows how big the gap between the two is normally. And yet: when we park the BMW 330e Touring and the Peugeot 508 PSE SW next to each other, passers-by seem only interested in the French station. Peugeot doesn’t just match the lust of BMW – they have passed the Germans with this.

While we don’t often judge the looks of cars – you have eyes and a brain to figure out what you think – we’d like to advise against looking too closely at the 508. It’s beautiful from a distance, but some details are exaggerated – especially those awkwardly stickered wings sticking out of its flanks. And is it just us or are those “kryptonite claws” just the same as the Monster logo?

1/1

However, as a whole it is very tasty. That is also allowed for more than 72,000 euros (67 mille in Belgium). Peugeot readily admits that this car is mainly a halomodel that fills a niche and lures you to the showroom, after which you roll out with an e-208. But this petrol-electric 508 PSE could also just be a relatively affordable exotic that you partly drive at the expense of the boss.

It doesn’t get much more ‘business car’ than the BMW 330e. You get the thoroughly responsible 3-series design and the well-known driving dynamics, in combination with a hybrid powertrain that is less powerful than that of the 508. The purchase price is also 15 mille lower; but if you jack up the equipment to a level that approaches that of the Peugeot, the prices are only slightly different.

The BMW 330e Touring has the simplest technology

The setup of the 330e is easy to digest: a familiar four-cylinder petrol engine with 184 horsepower, plus a 113-hp electric motor that drives the rear axle (xDrive is a 3.5 grand option). Its peak power is only a few horsepower below the sum of the values ​​of the petrol and electric motor.

Under the skin of the Peugeot, things turn out to be a bit more complex: a 200 hp four-cylinder turbo, known from the 208 GTi and RCZ, works together with two electric motors (one at the front and one at the rear) for a combined power of 360 hp. Those two e-motors of course provide four-wheel drive, but the rear axle never gets more than 114 hp to process. The car is fully electric when starting – and rear-wheel drive – but once the petrol engine comes in, the balance of power is at the front.

The Peugeot 508 PSE SW drives uniquely

That’s fine. This is where Peugeot’s expertise lies, and this hefty station wagon feels like a faster, steadier hot hatch when you’re chasing it. Opinions are divided about the small steering wheel, but it does give the 508 a turbulence that is difficult to ignore. It drives like no other four-wheel drive station wagon.

In addition to Electric, there are four driving modes: Comfort, Hybrid, Sport and 4WD. Since the car is basically both hybrid and four-wheel drive, that seems too wide a choice. And yet it’s not enough: you can’t use the softest damper setting at the same time as the sportiest mapping for the drivetrain. Only in Sport do you get full power (all other modes are capped at 330 horsepower), but that comes with a chunky suspension on bad roads.

The PSE is 4 millimeters closer to the ground than a standard 508, its suspension is 50 percent stiffer and the shocks are triple adjustable. Only in the most comfortable setting does the car really find its way, including the somewhat indecisive transmission. If Peugeot allowed mixing and matching between settings, the dynamics might have been so brilliant that other shortcomings were overshadowed.

The interior of the Peugeot

Some interior details are as exaggerated as those on and off the body, and the ability to choose six different layouts for the counters, and five massage functions, is like a distracting icing on a messy cake. The button ergonomics are incomprehensible at first, but perhaps his buyers see the 508 as an Indonesian jazz fusion album: averse to conventions and interesting for that very reason.

You are completely enveloped by its dark cabin, with a narrow window line and a surrounding dashboard, giving the feeling of a real performance car. The downside is that you can’t really take rear passengers taller than six feet, and while unstylish side windows add glamor without compromising sophistication, the effect is spoiled a bit by the clumsily pasted quarter windows in the rear doors.

“Where you need to get to know the Peugeot, you immediately know how everything works with the BMW”

Where you need to get to know the Peugeot, with the BMW you know exactly how everything works as soon as you get in. There is no habituation process. Despite all its hybrid technology (here you also have countless modes at your disposal) it is just as simple as BMWs have always been. It thus retains the most important characteristics of a 3-series: dead simple to operate, quite special to drive. This is a combination that few cars really grasp – Fords of the late 1990s did it too – and that’s only getting rarer as touchscreens and autonomy tighten their grip.

The BMW has the least hassle

It makes the 508 come across as a show-off; in the BMW are the basics just for each other, without hassle. Unlike the Peugeot, you don’t have to select a different transmission mode to regenerate the brakes. You can even turn it on in manual mode. And the PSE may have smart, massaging bucket seats, but here you’re just closer to the tarmac. Like any standard 3-series, the 330e makes it abundantly clear why the new design elsewhere in the BMW range stands out so much. That intricate styling is a complete change from the delightful elegance of this car, the brand’s core model.

While there are still a variety of petrol and diesel options to be had – Peugeot is actually targeting the M340i with the 508 PSE, they say – this 330e is such a joy to drive that you’ll wonder why anyone who pays attention to the euros would consider something else. Sure, it’s a mind-boggling 300 pounds heavier than a 330i, but you’d have to ride the two one after the other to really make a point of this.

Is simpler better?

The rear-wheel drive Touring shows that a traditional setup is often the best recipe for a good driver’s car. Even next to the Peugeot, it isn’t exactly soft, but all in all, it asks less of its driver and gives more in return. And with that amount of torque at the ready, ready to be hurled backwards, it’s not only fast but playful too. When you calm down, it makes everything so much simpler – its interior is bathed in logic and its boot space is smaller, but more usefully shaped than the SW’s.

Compare these cars on an objective or financial level and the 3 Series beats the 508 almost embarrassingly easily. The BMW is also the obvious choice if you like pure driving (okay, as pure as it can be in an automatic shifting hybrid ). He has to win this test. But if you’re crazy about cars and the quirkiness and diversity they can have, the progressive, the intriguing and the urge for something new and strange – possibly all the reasons you’re reading this website instead of another – then the 508 has a lot to offer. Especially if it wasn’t really yours.

The BMW will be more popular

Look at it this way: The sales sites will be overrun with 330e’s just out of lease in the coming years. It is a sensible and hard to criticize choice. But we suspect it will be the scarce 508 PSE ads that catch your eye, save them to your favorites and send to your friends with captions like ‘if you don’t take the chance, I’ll do it’. We also suspect that those cars will have been better treated and cared for by their first drivers. Wouldn’t you like to be the one to take a gamble?

BMW 330e Touring vs Peugeot 508 PSE SW: the verdict

The winner: BMW 330e Touring (16/20)

Nicer to drive, easier to operate and cheaper. The obvious winner of this test

Second place: Peugeot 508 PSE SW (14/20)

The loser, in itself, but its unique appearance and dynamics certainly have allure. How brave are you feeling today?