BMW's HVO Test Fleet Fills Up on Renewable Diesel More Than 80% of the Time

A BMW Group-led trial has quietly built a compelling argument for Brussels: a fleet of more than 600 diesel cars pulled up to the pump for over 5,500 refuelling stops in its first year, and in more than 80% of those visits the tank was filled with hydrotreated vegetable oil (HVO) rather than fossil diesel.

The numbers go beyond the fuelling rate. Cars from BMW and Mini, run inside the corporate fleets of BMW itself alongside Repsol in Spain, Eni in Italy and Bosch in Germany, took on roughly 235,000 litres of HVO. No hardware was swapped. No new pumps were installed.

The point of the exercise is verification. Each car’s refuelling data is cross-checked against fleet payment records, and for a subset of vehicles against forecourt data pulled through Bosch’s Digital Fuel Twin. In other words, BMW wants to show it can prove which fuel went into which car — not merely that a driver claims it did.

The regulatory pitch

That proof underpins a proposal BMW has been pushing for a while: a dedicated vehicle class for cars that run exclusively on eligible renewable fuels. BMW calls it VEEF — Vehicles Exclusively running on Eligible Fuels.

“The results prove a VEEF-only fleet is technically feasible,” said Dr Martin Kaufmann, Senior Vice President, Powertrain Development, urging policymakers to keep the door open to multiple technologies.

From factory fill to forecourt

BMW has already made HVO part of its routine. Every German-built BMW diesel has rolled out of the plant with unblended HVO in the tank since January 2025, and the fuel is now available at 6,130 stations across Europe. Supplier Neste puts the well-to-wheel CO2-equivalent saving at up to 90% compared with fossil diesel.

• Fleet size: 600+ diesel cars across four countries
• Refuelling events logged: more than 5,500 in 12 months
• HVO share of fills: above 80%
• HVO volume consumed: around 235,000 litres
• Hardware changes required: none, on cars or pumps

A second trial, and gasoline in the frame

Diesel is only half the story. Since July 2026 a smaller pilot has been running around Madrid with Bosch, Repsol and Toyota Motor Europe, where about 20 BMW, Mini and Toyota gasoline cars run solely on Nexa 95 fuel. BMW is also backing Europe-wide approval of E20 gasoline.

The subtext here is less about a single fuel and more about how combustion engines get counted in future emissions rules. If regulators accept that a car’s fuel can be verified with this level of traceability, the argument shifts — a diesel running on HVO would no longer be lumped in with one burning conventional crude. Whether Brussels buys that framing is another matter. The data, at least, is now on the table.