BMW 540i vs Audi A3

What's the difference?

Not all superheroes wear capes, and we're proud to report the 530e does its bit for green motoring without feeling the need to shout about it. And with no price or specification penalty, it's easier being green than ever before, and the pricing of this BMW really puts the cat amongst the canaries.

Closing in on $60,000 for a small car isn’t cheap. Ask a car dealer and they might even say the hatchback is a good way to get someone into a showroom to eventually look at an SUV.

But I reckon you’d be doing the A3 a disservice to count it out. It’s always been one of those cars that does everything well, and with this current facelift manages to keep its practicality without becoming boring.

It looks good on the outside, it’s smart on the inside and it’s fun to drive while remaining sensible. Even if you get it in bright yellow.

Crucially, there's nothing weird about the way the 530e looks. While some green cars look like they've been designed by one of the kids from 3rd Rock from the Sun, the 530e looks much the same as the rest of the range, save a few tiny but telltale giveaways - like the e-drive badging outside, and what looks like a bonus fuel flap tucked in behind a front wheel that houses the whole plug-in bit.

And we really, really like it. It's elegant and statesman-like from every angle, and looked especially important in the deep-blue colour of our test vehicle. It's not over-designed, with body creases used sparingly, and the occasional glint of polished silver that rings the windows and the grille adds a final sense of shininess to an understated design. 

Inside, there's more going on than you might normally find in a BMW. The hugely complicated digital display screen now includes everything from battery charge, power usage to the usual assortment of speedometers and petrol readouts. 

It doesn't feel overdone or crazily festooned, but there's more at play here than in your usual BMW.

The dash is busy, too, with a wide screen emerging from a centre stack that also houses a CD player and a digital aircon setup, which in turn sits above a complex centre console from which you can alter driving settings, control the multimedia or cycle through electric modes. It doesn't feel overdone or crazily festooned, but there's more at play here than in your usual BMW.

Elsewhere inside, the seats are beautifully designed, with a quilted leather highlight through the middle, while the gloss-black strip that lines the dash hides a dual strip of ambient interior lights that also runs across all four doors.

Eye of the beholder and all that, sure, but the A3 looks cool from the outside. It’s got this angular design but manages it without being too aggressive or busy with other design elements, so it still has a ‘premium Euro’ feel to it.

Shooting pics of the car for this review, the harsh light accentuated its sharp lines. It looks sculptural rather than just some little blob. 

At the same time, thanks to the proliferation of sports design packs like the S Line, The A3 looks like it could be an S3, almost. Which makes sense, because the front bumper and rear diffuser as well as the roof spoiler are all partly inspired by RS models.

New for the A3 is the flat, 2D Audi badge, the model name on the B pillar and the new font for its name on the tailgate. 

The lights in the cluster are able to look narrower than before thanks to their customisable settings, which allow you to choose the light signature, while the grille has a flatter appearance and the air intakes are bigger. Even the wheels look like they’re from a sports car.

Whether you’d have the A3 in the Python Yellow of our test car is another thing. I don’t mind a loud colour but I reckon a bit of 'District Green', 'Ascari Blue' or 'Progressive Red' would be the vibe.

Also, any colour that isn’t white is a cost-option on the A3, all of them coming in at $1350, except Ascari Blue which is an Audi Sport colour and costs $1850.

Speaking of the vibe, inside the A3 feels properly nice. It’s not just a spruced up Golf in there. There’s proper Audi character to the car, though that means plenty of piano black trim to get smudgy.

Audi’s done a good job making the layout look sleek without resorting to locating all the controls in the screen. There are design elements in the cabin that aren't strictly necessary but are worth doing for the way they look.

Things like the way the vents flank the driver display or the trim inlay on the passenger side of the dash.

As the world's motoring tastes shrink faster than a lap-banded Clive Palmer, it's easy to forget the joys of the full-size sedan, but the space for passengers and luggage in the 5 Series will have you questioning your downsizing ways.

Upfront, there's plenty of room between front-seat riders, who will also share two smallish cup holders, along with room in each front door for bottles. There's also a dedicated wireless charge pad (which, because of its tight design, is crazy difficult to actually remove your phone from), but you'll also get two USB points and a power outlet that's hidden in the sizeable centre storage bin as standard fit.

Backseat riders get heaps of space, both in width and in leg room behind the front seats. And there's twin air-con temp controls and twin power outlets, too. But middle-seat passengers will be forced to sit with their legs on either side of the raised tunnel, which will definitely impact on comfort.

The boot's still sizeable, despite shrinking slightly to house the battery/fuel tank setup

Best to ditch the fifth passenger, then, and deploy the pull-down seat divider, which also houses two cup holders. Finally, there are three ISOFIX attachment points, one for each seat in the back.

The boot's still sizeable, despite shrinking slightly to house the battery/fuel tank setup (the tank has been moved further back to accomodate the batteries), and can be adjusted to be a flat load area if you'd like, offering up to 410 litres with the rear seats in place.

Starting from what’s right in front of you as a driver, the steering wheel is the same as in bigger, more expensive Audis. That’s a good thing, because it’s nice to hold, has a good shape for the nine-and-three hand position and it’s not too thick. 

As well as the nice, clear buttons on the wheel, you’ve got some physical controls for the climate control and some of the vehicle functions like parking assist and stop-start under the multimedia screen.

For a car this size, the 10.1-inch central touchscreen is plenty big enough, and the fact it doesn't sit up high over the dash is great. It's like a perfect arm's length for your standard-sized adult (like me). I can reach the other side of the screen without needing to lean.

The fact there’s no head-up display is a bit of a let-down, but the now-standard 12.3-inch driver display is very good. It’s configurable yet clear, and means you can get detailed navigation information in front of you rather than having to look to the multimedia screen. 

The test A3 has genuine leather upholstery, which is $1100 extra. Not the most you’d pay for leather seats in a Euro, and the seats are comfortable. They're nicely bolstered, the drivers’ side is electrically adjustable and the leather doesn’t feel hard or rough to the touch.

Sitting behind my own seating position in the second row is a little tight, however. At 178cm, my knees almost touch the seat in front. There's also no sunroof, and even though there's just about enough light, that omission doesn’t help the cramped feeling.

There are, like the front, two USB-C ports and the air vents in the back, the latter separately adjustable to avoid arguments, though the cupholders in the armrest are in an awkwardly central position.

Behind that, under the 380-litre boot's floor is a space-saver spare tyre. That's better than some SUVs designed for family adventures that only offer up an inflator/repair kit. Keep that up, Audi. Good job. Well done. 

If you fold the rear seats, you get 1200 litres of space. Interestingly, those luggage space figures are the same as the BMW 1 Series.

For $54,800, before on-road costs, the A3 can be had as a hatchback - aka Sportback if you’re Audi - or for $57,800 as a sedan.

It’s a little over $4000 more expensive than the pre-facelift version, but Audi reckons there’s about $10,000 more value than before.

And value can be an important when you’ve got the BMW 118 ($57,600) and Mercedes A200 ($61,900) not sitting too far away in terms of price.

Part of the A3’s value equation comes thanks to the addition of the S Line package as standard, which not only makes the A3 look sportier but adds heated sports seats, aluminium interior trim elements and stainless steel on the pedals.

There’s also a larger 12.3-inch screen for the driver display as standard rather than an option. Audi has also reconfigured the air vents for the three-zone climate control, as well as adding a new style gear shifter.

Continued standard kit on the A3 is a wireless phone charger as well as a 10-speaker sound system, an ambient lighting package, a leather steering wheel and synthetic leather trim on the seats which all make for a sporty feel on the inside.

But on the outside there’s also customisable LED headlights and daytime running lights, as well as dynamic indicators and a set of 18-inch alloy wheels.

The car we tested also has a couple of options, its 'Python Yellow' paint is $1350 which I’ll come back to in the design section, but there’s also optional leather seats for $1100 and an electric tailgate for $660, the latter certainly worth it, I reckon.

All up, the car on test comes to $57,910, before on-roads, so even an optioned-up A3 comes in at either the same or less than its closest rivals from BMW and Mercedes-Benz.

Drift around in pure EV mode and you'll be relying on the 530e's 83kW and 250Nm electric motor, which will provide what BMW refers to as "between 28 and 32 real-world kilometres".

Run out of range, or simply use too much throttle, and the 2.0-litre petrol engine comes into play, adding 135kW and 320Nm to the mix. All up, that's 185kW and 420Nm - respectable numbers by any measure, and enough to match the petrol-powered 530i's zero to 100km/h sprint of 6.2 seconds.

That power is fed through an eight-speed automatic transmission before being sent exclusively to the rear wheels, where it belongs.

The A3 is powered by a 1.5-litre, turbocharged four-cylinder petrol engine that makes 110kW and 250Nm.

It drives the front wheels via a seven-speed dual-clutch auto transmission and it can hit 100km/h in a claimed 8.1 seconds.

It’s also got a 48-volt mild hybrid system to help with efficiency, though you’d need to be told about it to notice. It also helps with the A3’s (smooth) stop-start system.

Like a Facebook relationship status, it's complicated. The 530e will sip a claimed combined 2.3 litres per hundred kilometres on the claimed/combined cycle, which is amazing for a car this size. Better still, it seems genuinely achievable - at the vehicle's launch, our own Richard Berry recorded a stunning 2.0 litres per hundred kilometres on a short test route.

But that's with a full load of battery charge on board. For our week with the 530e we were unable to actually plug it in (living in Sydney, I can't afford a garage), so once the initial battery charge had been used we were back to mostly petrol power. Unlike some other plug-in hybrids we've driven, we found it very difficult to recharge the battery to any meaningful level using regenerative braking, so once we were flat we stayed flat. If we had plugged it in, it would have been a two-hour recharge using a specialised wall unit, or about four hours using a normal plug.

As a result, though, our fuel use was closer to 7.0 litres per hundred kilometres after some considerable real-world testing.

The A3’s 50-litre fuel tank needs to be filled with RON 95 premium fuel and it’ll drink a claimed 5.3-litres per 100km on the combined (urban/extra-urban) cycle.

Theoretically you’re topping 900km a tank there, but given how fun this car is to drive you’d have to be well behaved to get even close.

For reference, whenever I was on a normal, day-to-day drive on test the A3's trip computer was returning figures in the mid to high sixes.

There's so much to like about the way the 530e sets about saving the world, and that's mostly because it doesn't shout about it, either to the driver or the outside world.

It's very much an underpants inside its pants superhero, which makes us like it even more. Set off in EV mode, and the 530e will drift silently away from the curb, burning battery power over fuel for as many as 30(ish) kilometres. But equally important, the shift from green to gas is largely imperceptible, with the petrol engine joining in willingly when you ask it to - usual via a prod of your right foot.

It is so effortlessly smooth that you need to really pay attention to notice the eight-speed 'box changing gears at city speeds, and it's commendably quiet, whichever drive mode you're in.

Downsides? Well, it doesn't feel quite as sharp as it's conventional-engined siblings. The batteries add around 230kg in weight, which never helps, and it all feels a little softer and a little less dynamic, even with Sport mode engaged. BMW assures us the adaptive suspension setup and tune is identical, but the 530e feels noticeably softer when you tackle a twisting back road. And that encourages you to use your right foot a little more, which in turn negates the whole electric thing in the first place.

One of the great joys of BMWs has always been their ability to transform from cosseting comfort to rear-drive rocket when you want them to, and you can't help but notice the 530e isn't quite up to that challenge. But if your intentions are mostly city- and freeway-based, then this plug-in BMW is almost indiscernible from its petrol-powered sibling.

First things first, the A3’s exterior and S Line pack are a clue to the way the car drives. It’s probably not the perfect car if you like a cushy, soft ride. 

Its suspension errs towards the stiffer side of things, and certain bumps can feel more significant than they need to. But even on particularly bad roads or tram tracks in the city the dampers do a decent job of soaking up the harsh stuff.

It also means there’s more road noise than you’d like on some older highway surfaces, but only in a way that might get annoying if you’re on a road trip with the stereo off for some reason.

The upside of that is its steering feels well weighted and accurate. Plus, the way it handles and corners feels like a bit more grunt would make this a proper driver's car.

It’s not too intense, and there’s enough feedback to make it feel like the A3 shouldn't be a city-dweller only when it comes to driving.

Of course, it’s a hatchback, so you've got the advantages that come with less weight and a lower centre of gravity. 

It doesn’t have enough weight to push into understeer more than you’d like on a tight corner. But it also doesn’t feel so light that you’re not sure how it’s going to behave under sharp braking.

The A3’s drivetrain, despite looking underwhelming on paper, feels practical on the road. Sure, 110kW isn't anything wicked, but its 250Nm feel like they’re working in the right places - that being between 1500 and 3500rpm. 

It isn't blisteringly quick but even with the seven-speed transmission operating in default auto mode it usually feels like it's in the right place, let alone chipping in with 'manual' shifts via the paddles or shifting drive modes. The A3 has a choice of 'Normal' and 'Sport' shift settings.

You might be a little disappointed if you thought you’d be getting anything approaching a hot hatch, but for an entry-level model the A3 more than holds its own. It’s a solid platform that performs well without compromising too much when it comes to daily driving ability.

Tested in 2020, the A3’s been awarded a maximum five-star rating from ANCAP which applies to the facelifted version.

Six airbags and a suite of active safety tech helped contribute to this, though, whether it would pass with five stars under ANCAP’s current assessment protocols isn’t certain.

That’s likely only down to its relatively non-invasive safety warnings and mild assistance with things like lane-keep and speed warnings.

If you’re someone who’s likely to turn off most of the electronic assistance, the A3’s systems are at a pretty good level as standard.

It’s missing some modern kit like surround-view parking cameras but it does have front and rear proximity sensors and things like rear cross-traffic alert.

Like the rest of the 5 Series range, the 530e falls under BMW's three-year, unlimited-kilometre warranty. There are no set service intervals, either, with BMW using what it calls 'condition-based' servicing. In other words, the car will tell you when it requires a trip to the service centre.

The batteries are covered by a separate warranty covering six years or 100,000km.

Audi offers a five-year/unlimited kilometre warranty, which is about par for a premium brand, but it also offers five years' free roadside assist and the ability to pay to extend the warranty.

Servicing is $2520 for a five year plan, but the extended two years of 'Audi Advantage' warranty is $3250 and comes with unlimited kilometres, roadside assist and covers two services.