2021 BMW 3 Series Values & Cars for Sale | Kelley Blue Book

An outstanding compact sports sedan, the luxurious BMW 3 Series must fend off not just the usual Mercedes-Benz C-Class and Audi A4 competitors, but also other sporty offerings such as the Alfa Romeo Giulia and Genesis G70.

This 7th-generation 3 Series, revamped last year, is packed with the latest technology and safety features, and its performance ranges from good to great. The base 4-cylinder 330i, with 255 horsepower, gets the job done, but the M340i, powered by a 382-horsepower turbocharged inline-6, really gets our heart pumping.

Even more potent is the new 2021 BMW M3 sedan, which is powered by a twin-turbo 3.0-liter inline-6 with 473 horsepower mated to a 6-speed manual transmission. The M3 Competition has an even more powerful version of that engine, with 503 horsepower. It comes standard with an 8-speed automatic transmission and AWD.

Also new for 2021 are two plug-in hybrid (PHEV) models: the BMW 330e and the all-wheel-drive (AWD) 330e xDrive, both of which promise to be fuel-efficient and fun to drive. A turbocharged 2.0-liter engine with 181 horsepower is teamed with a 107-horsepower electric motor. The total combined output of the new BMW 3 Series PHEV is 288 horsepower.

Equally significant, the new PHEV 3 Series models can travel 22 miles on electricity alone (cut that to 20 miles for the xDrive model), getting power from a lithium-ion battery beneath the car’s back seat. EPA combined fuel economy is 28 mpg for the rear-drive 330e and 25 mpg for the 330e xDrive AWD version.

Both of the new 3 Series PHEV sedans have what BMW calls XtraBoost, which is available only in Sport mode and offers an extra 40-horsepower increase for up to 10 seconds. As such, the 330e PHEV hits 60 mph in 5.6 seconds (5.7 for the xDrive model). Of note, both cars can be driven up to 87 mph in purely electric mode.