Germans don't believe in hybrids. Deep down in their hearts and souls they're diesel people whenever the goal of CO2 reduction comes up. But they know that Americans have some fascination with the technology, so they humor us with cars like the 2013 BMW Active Hybrid 3. It wears glittery chrome HYBRID badging, but do not be fooled. These vehicles are not whip-out-the-calculator fuel- and money-savers; they are blow-everybody's-doors-off cars that afford owners a certain smugness factor. "Don't scowl at my wanton display of excessive speed! Electrons recovered from my last panic stop funded part of that smoky burnout!"
This is, after all, the musclecar application of a powertrain shared with the heavier Active Hybrid 5 and 7 Series cars, so it's the most blatant hot rod of the family. And why not? Its direct competitors -- the Infiniti M35h and Lexus GS 450h -- are equally disingenuous from an ecological standpoint, earning far more impressive acceleration figures (5.1 and 6.0 seconds to 60 mph respectively) than they do EPA city/highway/combined figures (27/32/29 and 32/28/30 mpg). For comparison purposes, BMW is claiming 5.3 seconds to 62 mph (trust me, we'll track it at 5 flat or better to 60) and a class-trailing 25/33/28 mpg. At $50,195, the Active Hybrid 3 wears the lowest base price, but with options it quickly matches the $54,595 Infiniti or $59,825 Lexus, and with gas at $3.50/gallon, the BMW's $6500 price premium over a 335i would take about 950,000 miles to pay itself off. (The Infiniti pencils out around 130,000 miles; the Lexus at 292,000.)
To recap and save you Googling our coverage of the Active Hybrid 5 and Active Hybrid 7, the system replaces the conventional torque converter with an electric motor that is clutched to the engine and also serves as the vehicle's alternator, charging the batteries and helping accelerate the car. In place of the alternator on the front of the engine is a belt-driven starter that re-lights the engine every time it starts. This allows the computer to match the engine speed to that of the electric motor and transmission, avoiding unpleasant driveline shock. The rest of the ZF eight-speed transmission is essentially carryover, except for a modified clutch pack used to smooth the car's step-off from rest. It sort of performs the fluid-coupling function of a normal torque converter.
Most engine start-stop events are utterly imperceptible if you're not looking at the tach. Only when driving in the Sport modes, which prevent the engine from shutting down while in motion, does the car occasionally shake a bit on shutdown and start-up. This is partly because there's no road vibration to mask it, and partly due to the difference in how abruptly the engine shuts down.
