BMW launches demonstration fleet running on renewable HVO100 fuel

BMW Group presents a demo fleet using HVO100 renewable diesel at Fleet Europe Days 2025, aiming to prove full traceability and support EU RED III targets for CO₂ reduction.

The BMW Group is taking another step toward lowering carbon emissions. At the Fleet Europe Days held in Luxembourg on 22–23 October 2025, the company introduced a demonstration fleet running entirely on the diesel replacement fuel HVO100. The project aims to show fleet operators practical ways to decarbonize without a full shift to electric mobility.

HVO100, or hydrotreated vegetable oil, complies with the EN 15940 standard. It is fully compatible with modern diesel engines and enables up to a 90 percent reduction in CO₂ emissions compared with conventional fossil diesel. Since January 2025, all BMW diesel models produced in Germany have received their initial factory fuelling with HVO100. The fuel is supplied by Finnish company Neste and used at BMW plants in Munich, Dingolfing, Regensburg, and Leipzig.

At the same time, BMW is implementing a system that verifies exclusive HVO100 use. Refuelling data collected from each vehicle is cross-checked with payment information from fleet operators, ensuring full transparency. The first large fleets in Germany and Italy are preparing to join the programme.

In Germany, the path for such fuels was opened in late May 2024, when sales of EN 15940 (the so-called XTL fuel) were authorised at public filling stations. Since then, the HVO100 network has expanded rapidly: by early 2025, sources report between 278 and 350 stations nationwide.

BMW emphasises that technological openness remains a cornerstone of its strategy. Battery-electric vehicles, plug-in hybrids, hydrogen systems, and efficient combustion engines running on renewable fuels are all part of a balanced mobility approach. The company therefore calls for HVO100-powered fleets to be formally recognised in European fleet legislation.

BMW also urges EU member states to implement national quotas under the Renewable Energy Directive III, requiring at least a 30 percent reduction in greenhouse-gas emissions from fuels. The deadline for transposing these requirements into national law is May 2025.

In this context, BMW’s demonstration fleet is more than a technical trial — it forms part of a broader strategy to prove that a transition to carbon-neutral mobility is already achievable today through the combined use of existing technologies.