About 18 months ago, BMW started selling a plug-in hybrid version of its mid-sized 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.
Photographer: Dania Maxwell/Bloomberg
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 ...