A passer-by was wounded in the blast in Peshawar's upmarket Hayatabad neighbourhood, which lies close to Khyber tribal district, where the army is battling Taliban-linked militants.
The bomb targeted a convoy of security personnel that passed by shortly before the blast and escaped unharmed.
"One person passing in his car was killed while another passer-by was wounded, both of them are civilians," Rana Umer Hayat, a senior police official told AFP.
The city suffered the worst terror attack in Pakistani history in December when Taliban gunmen massacred more than 150 people at an army-run school, most of them children.
But since then there has been something of a lull in violence. The last deadly attack in the city came in February when three heavily armed Taliban militants stormed a Shiite mosque, killing 21 people.
The Pakistan army has been waging a major campaign against Taliban and other militant strongholds in the North Waziristan tribal area since June last year.
