BMW 330e Versus Mercedes-Benz C350e Versus 20 Kilometer (12 Miles) Trip

The headquarters of the two carmakers are only separated by a little over 200 kilometers, but when it comes to market share and sales, they're neck and neck. They've just exchanged places last year in the premium sales chart, but they remain fierce competitors.

Both brands have managed to build a certain image for themselves - Mercedes-Benz is the elegant one, while BMW does sporty - to make it easier for people to choose, but there's one aspect where they are still trailing: electrification.

Mercedes-Benz has the electric version of the B-Class and the smart city car, while BMW has gone one step further and built an EV from scratch in the form of the i3. However, none are particularly impressive by today's standards, and so the two German competitors have big plans for the future.

At the moment, though, what they have is very short ranges. Electric propulsion isn't restricted to just pure battery-powered vehicles, but can be obtained from a plug-in hybrid as well (or plug-in hybrid electric vehicle, to be more exact). Luckily, BMW and Mercedes have some of those.

But if you found the maximum range of their BEVs underwhelming, wait until you hear what their PHEVs can do: they'll go for around 30 (the Merc) to 40 (the BMW) km (18 to 25 miles) before they run out of juice.

To test these numbers, the guys at Cars.co.za planned a trip of 20 kilometers (about 12.5 miles) through a suburban area, as close as you can get to the environment where electrics feel most at home, hoping to see whether they could make it. We're not going to spoil the result for you, but you should bear one thing in mind: there won't be any towing involved, as these cars still have the internal combustion engines to keep them going once the batteries run out. If you were hoping to laugh at their expense as they stand helplessly on the side of the road, better luck next time.