BMW News

    Sponsoring most events is pretty straightforward for any company: fork over the right sum of cash and you're the official automaker/timekeeper/jelly donut maker of the event. But for BMW, being Official Automotive Partner of the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games is more complicated.

    Providing 4,000 vehicles wasn't enough, BMW also had to meet the committee's stringent emissions requirements: while the average emissions of vehicles in the UK comes in at 138 grams of CO2 per kilometer, the automaker had to come in below 120 g/km – which BMW did at 116 g/km.

    To get there, a portion of the cars are electric vehicles: 160 1 Series ActiveE,  40 of the Mini E, 40 of the 5 Series Active Hybrid. The rest of the fleet is comprised of the 320D Efficient Dynamics (1,550 vehicles), 520 Efficient Dynamics (700), X3 xDrive 20d(17), X5 xDrive 30d (10) and Mini Cooper Countryman D (200 vehicles), plus another 25 R1200 RT motorcycles and 400 BMW Streetcruiser bicycles.

    Whether it's pulling boats out of the water at Weymouth, providing a mobile camera platform for the marathon, towing a horse ambulance across Greenwich Park or carrying medal winners around the Olympic Park to media interviews, the fleet will perform a wide range of duties. The cars, motorcycle and bicycles will be making sure the right people are in the right place at the right time, across more than 30 venues in London and beyond.
     
    Media will be users of the fleet, as well as judges, event organisers, Games officials and staff, ranging from medical officers, IOC photographers and crew to technical delegates. The combination of London's already chaotic traffic, with the thousands of people attending the games, the deadline rushes involved, and "who cares" factor that goes with motor fleets, suggests these vehicles will cram the entire life of a Munich taxi into a couple of months. It'll be interesting to see what  happens to them afterwards; and what sort of warranty they carry if they're sold. ––Paul Duchene