Peugeot 308 vs BMW 1 Series

What's the difference?

The 308 GT Sport plug-in hybrid is a beautifully designed small hatch that is comfortable, enjoyable and easy to drive. The electric motor gives this hatch good acceleration and the equally impressive handling makes for a fun car to drive too. There's good storage, a decent boot and room for even tall people like me in those back seats.

There are two clear drawbacks, however: the price is steep compared to the petrol version; and you'll need to plug the vehicle into a power supply each night if you drive the car daily and want to achieve the 2.4L/100km fuel economy we did in this test.

Last, but probably the most important thing you'll read is that Peugeot will bring fully electric cars to Australia from the second half of 2023, from SUVs to (hopefully) the battery electric version of this very 308 hatch.

If it was my money, I'd hold on - you're going to have your next car for quite a long time so it's worth waiting for the fully electric versions.

Note: CarsGuide attended this event as a guest of the manufacturer, with meals provided.

A brief dalliance with the 1 Series has left me impressed, if wanting to spend more time with it to get a better assessment of the day-to-day liveability of BMW’s entry-level model.

It’s a compelling offering if you’re after a premium small car, and even without the performance of the M135, the 118 is feature-packed.

Keeping pricing competitive should help the 1 Series buck the trend of buyers opting for small SUVs, but ultimately it’s just refreshing to see BMW putting effort into keeping a hatchback relevant (and up-to-date).

Note: CarsGuide attended this event as a guest of the manufacturer, with meals provided.

There hasn't been a Peugeot in the last five years that wasn't stunning. There's the high quality feel in their build, and premium yet unique look - like a new Volvo but with more flair. And the 308 hatch and this hybrid version has all of that.

From the sinister looking LED tail-lights to the wide mesh grille, you really get the feeling that Peugeot is hitting its design stride.

This 308 GT Sport plug-in hybrid looks identical to the petrol version with its low, wide stance, and big dark alloy wheels that fill up its arches.

The cabin is sporty, lavish and minimalist with quilted leather upholstery seats, the digital driver display and media screen, and avant garde small angular steering wheel.

The 1 Series has worn many faces over the generations and, like a lot of BMW designs that depart from tradition, this one might need to grow on some people.

That’s not to say there’s not a lot to like about the F70, but as BMW evolves its design language some changes might ruffle feathers - a lack of the iconic ‘angel eye’ headlight style being one.

But there’s still a kidney grille up front, with new design elements, plus those headlights that have a new vertical light signature are now sleeker than before, giving the new 1 a different ‘character’.

But from the rear, there are baby 3 Series Touring vibes, and it’s hard to find anything that might upset purists - there’s even the 'Hoffmeister kink' at the c-pillar. That’s the way the window angles back towards the front at the bottom.

Inside, the 1 Series has some proper sporty elements, even in the 118, that reference the M development that went into it.

There’s M-coloured stitching up over the dash fabric, for example, and illuminated aluminium panels with M-coloured lighting.

The steering wheel, wrapped in leather, is also an M feature, plus sporty seats are even present in the 118.

The interior is an overall cleaner look, in part thanks to the proliferation of features accessible by touchscreen, but BMW is refraining from going full ‘Tesla’ and removing all the buttons from the cabin.

Peugeot's 308 is a small hatch, think Toyota Corolla, only beautiful and more spacious.

So, the 308 can carry five people with just enough head and legroom for a semi-giant like me (I'm 191cm) to sit behind his driving position.

There's good cabin storage with large door pockets, a long and deep storage box under the centre armrest up front along with two cupholders up there, too.

The boot has a cargo capacity of 361 litres, which isn't bad for this class.

To power devices there's a wireless phone charger under the dash, and USB ports for front and rear passengers.

A quirky Peugeot design feature is the low-placed angular steering wheel. I found had to squeeze my knees past to sit in the driver's seat. I'm not sure what size human was used as the test case for this but it wasn't somebody with stilts like mine, I can tell you that.

Yes, a brand like BMW would probably find it hard to do away with buttons for things like drive modes and things like volume controls or car settings.

Even though a lot of them are shortcuts to a touchscreen menu, it means not needing to scroll or hunt for important driving-based features and options on the 10.25-inch screen.

Even the climate controls are permanently available on the screen so that there’s minimal distraction.

For most non-essential features, however, BMW’s Operating System 9 is a far cry from the easy-to-use iDrive system of just a few years ago, the media control wheel that fell easily to hand and navigated a simple multimedia system of only a few sub-menus.

Fortunately, the screen and everything in the cabin is within reach of the driver, so there’s no awkward leaning or stretching to do anything mid-drive.

The cabin’s physical space is otherwise nicely laid-out, the phone charger pad is out of the way, cupholders fit most receptacles nicely and the door card can hold two regular water bottles plus other small items.

There’s even a small storage ‘shelf’ under the central vents, and near the wireless charger are two USB-C ports and a 12-volt plug.

The ergonomics of the driving position and steering wheel are well-sorted, and seat adjustment and height feels good for both engaged or relaxed driving positions.

Behind that, the second row could be more spacious, even though I managed to fit my 178cm frame behind my own seating position just fine.

There’s not a lot of room to move or stretch out, so most adults will probably find the back seat suitable for short trips only.

Behind that, there’s 380 litres of boot space, or 1200L with the seats folded down.

The 1 Series isn’t much more expensive than before, despite a decent uptick in kit.

At $56,500 before on-roads for the entry grade 118, it’s less than $2000 pricier than its predecessor. It’s about the price of a VW Golf GTI or Subaru WRX, but trades engine power for badge power, as well as a series of features you’d expect from a premium small car.

A 10.25-inch multimedia touchscreen and 10.7-inch driver display are standard, with wireless phone charging, electric heated seats in Veganza synthetic leather, adaptive suspension and plenty of sporty styling thanks to the M Sport pack.

There’s a few more helpful features for keen drivers, even in the 118. Adaptive LED headlights with high beam assist, a head-up display, BMW’s 'Parking Assist Plus' function, speed limit recognition and tyre pressure monitoring.

The 1 Series also has keyless entry and start, an automatic tailgate, plus some standard stuff like a 40/60 split-fold rear seat and (unfortunately) a tyre repair kit under the boot floor rather than a spare tyre.

Then there’s the M135 xDrive, the hot hatch of the pair.

It starts at $82,500 and comes with extras like a massage seat for the driver, a heated steering wheel, a Harman/Kardon sound system, racier styling and a black roof, plus performance goodies like a bigger engine.

The M135 is a bit more expensive than before though, by almost $6000, and comparable rivals like the Audi S3 remain in the mid-$70K range.

Two options packs are available, with the 118's $5000 Enhancement Pack adding Metallic paint, 19-inch M alloys, a heated steering wheel, a sunroof, massaging front seats, a Harman/Kardon sound system and Driving Assistant Professional.

There's also an M Sport Package Pro able to be added to either variant, which adds sportier M styling, a black roof for the 118, and M Sports seats for the front row. This pack costs $2462 for the 118 or $2700 for the M135 xDrive.

Two options packs are available, with the 118's $5000 Enhancement Pack adding Metallic paint, 19-inch M alloys, a heated steering wheel, a sunroof, massaging front seats, a Harman/Kardon sound system and Driving Assistant Professional.There's also an M Sport Package Pro able to be added to either variant, which adds sportier M styling, a black roof for the 118, and M Sports seats for the front row. This pack costs $2462 for the 118 or $2700 for the M135 xDrive.

The 308 GT Sport plug-in hybrid has a 1.6-litre turbo-petrol engine making 132kW and 250Nm combined with an electric motor at the front wheels making 81kW and 320Nm.

The combined output of the engine and motor working together is 165kW and 360Nm, and sending that grunt to the front wheels only is an eight-speed automatic transmission.

Acceleration is good. We're talking 0-100km/h in 7.4 seconds which is more than two seconds quicker than the petrol-only variant.

The two 1 Series variants have rather different running gear.

The 118 comes with a 1.5-litre three-cylinder turbo petrol engine that drives the front wheels via a seven-speed dual-clutch transmission (DCT).

It makes 115kW and 230Nm, and BMW says it’ll hit 100km/h in 8.5 seconds.

That’s in comparison to the beefier 2.0-litre four-cylinder unit in the M135, also turbocharged, but driving all four wheels via a similar seven-speed DCT.

It makes 233kW and 400Nm, and it’ll crack 100km/h in 4.9 seconds according to the Bavarian brand.

This is what it's all about right? Well, Peugeot says that after a combination of open and urban roads the 308 GT Sport plug-in hybrid will use 1.3L/100km.

At the launch I did a 34km test loop through Sydney's Northern Beaches with a good mix of morning traffic and hilly terrain. At the end of my journey the trip computer reported an average fuel consumption of 2.4L/100km.

I drove the entire loop in Hybrid mode, but there is a Sport mode, a Battery Save mode and EV mode.

If you were to drive in EV mode Peugeot says the electric driving range with a full battery is 60km.

At the start of my drive the battery was about three-quarters charged with the gauges displaying 38km of range.

A mileage of 2.4L/100km is still excellent fuel economy and from experience I can tell you a petrol-only variant would be up around the 8.0 or 9.0L/100km mark for the same trip.

There is a catch, and that is you'll need to plug in your hybrid 308 daily to charge the battery if you plan to achieve the fuel economy I did.

Charging will be slow, however, because Peugeot has fitted this hybrid with a small 3.7kW on-board charger. So, even using a fast charger you'll be looking at more than four hours to fully charge the 12.4kWh lithium-ion battery.

This charging time and small electric driving range in return could be a deal breaker for some and it's the reason why I've given the 308 GT Sport plug-in hybrid a lower mark. If you aren't always charging this car your fuel usage will rocket. New buyers unaware of this could end up using more petrol than ever.

A fully electric vehicle may be a better solution for city dwellers.

BMW says the 118 will sip 6.4 litres of recommended 95 RON fuel for every 100km covered, with its 49-litre tank the same as the M135’s.

In that variant, fuel use increases to 7.8L/100km, as does recommended fuel quality to 98 RON.

We didn’t get a chance to test fuel consumption properly on the launch, so keep an eye on a future review for that, but given the relatively high claim even for the 118, we’d expect the 1 Series isn’t the most frugal drinker.

Once you've become accustomed to the strange, low steering wheel with its angular design the 308 GT Sport plug-in hybrid is superb to drive. The suspension is composed and comfortable, the handling is excellent, the steering is light and with the combination of both the electric motor and petrol engine, acceleration is good.

For those of you who haven't driven a plug-in hybrid before I think you'll like the quiet electric power at low speeds and the feeling of ‘instant' acceleration the electric motor adds, but compared to driving a regular petrol car the experience is much the same, just less noisy and smoother.

The launch drive for the 1 Series included some outer-suburban Melbourne traffic, a stint of highway driving down towards the Mornington Peninsula, and a semi-rural road loop for each variant before the return journey.

So, noting that we didn’t quite get the chance to really work out what it might be like to live with the 1 Series day-to-day, first impressions showed good signs.

Both variants still drive much like you’d expect from even a front-drive BMW, let alone the AWD M135, but the chassis and suspension seem like they’d be good counterparts on a daily drive.

In the M135, communication and compliance seemed well-balanced with each other for even some particularly rough surfaces, and after torrential rain there were some potholes that would properly upset most cars that didn’t faze the 1 Series too much.

The 118 seemed to let a little more road noise into the cabin, but that might have been a symptom of different road surfaces.

The steering is accurate, but the feel in both is a little heavier than needed, especially with the thick-rimmed BMW steering wheel that you’ll know about if you’ve driven anything from Munich in recent years.

It’s a very easy car to drive fast, especially with the combination of 233kW, 400Nm, and all-wheel drive at the M135’s disposal.

The chassis and tyres work quite well together to not only hold a corner at impressive speed, but also keep the car stable so that traction isn’t an issue when launching out.

There’s also the joy of hearing a turbo spool and flutter under load, which is hard to deny as a draw for petrolheads.

There’s plenty of active safety in the new 1 Series, new kit includes an updated 'Driving Assistant Plus', BMW calls it.

It features all the driving assist functions like lane departure warnings and rear cross-traffic alert, but the M135 gets a higher-spec version with extras like front cross-traffic alert, side collision prevention, and evasion assist.

This can be added to the 118 for $5000 in the Enhancement Package, but it seems a bit stiff to put safety features behind a paywall alongside items like a sunroof and a high-end audio system.

Mercifully, the 1 Series’ active safety systems are all pretty unobtrusive. There are very few ‘bings and bongs’ as we’ve come to call them, and any warnings are generally subtle.

There’s a quick way to turn most of them off via a physical button near the gear selector, and its adaptive cruise control is well tuned for urban, highway and rural driving.

Otherwise, the third-gen 1 Series scored five stars with ANCAP in 2019, so we will wait and see if its successor maintains that score.

It’s also got six airbags including front and side, as well as curtain airbags covering both rows.

The 308 GT Sport plug-in hybrid is covered by Peugeot's five-year/unlimited-kilometre warranty.

Peugeot will cover the hybrid battery with an eight-year/160,000km warranty.

Servicing is recommended at 15,000km or 12 month intervals and it can be expensive. Peugeot says the first service will be $425, then second is $771, the next is $425, then at 60,000km the costs will be $900, then $439 for the following.

BMW’s got a fairly standard five-year/unlimited kilometre warranty.

The brand also uses a condition-based servicing system, which uses the multimedia to alert the owner when maintenance is required.

There are servicing packages which remove some of that uncertainty, in the 1 Series’ case a five-year, 80,000km pack costs $2210.