BMW expands its ‘eDrive Zones’ in Europe to promote emission-free driving
BMW Group has expanded its eDrive Zones in another 20 European cities including Copenhagen, Verona and Toulouse. This has taken the total number of eDrive Zones to 138 cities. The service is expected to be rolled out in at least another 30 cities worldwide in the coming year.
In an eDrive Zone, BMW plug-in hybrid vehicles automatically switch to all-electric driving mode upon entering inner city areas, driving locally emission-free. The vehicle recognises the designated areas using geofencing technology and GPS. The automated eDrive feature is available as standard in many existing and all future BMW plug-in hybrids.
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Drivers of electric vehicles are rewarded with bonus points for each all-electric kilometre that they drive – and with double points in an eDrive Zone. They can collect these points and redeem them for charging credit. In turn, drivers also collect bonus points while charging their vehicles.
As per data collated by BMW, more than 75% of all trips in an eDrive Zone are completed in electric driving mode already. Out of these, around 40 per cent of drivers already enter the designated areas using the electric mode. The additional 35 per cent switch to electric driving mode using the eZone function.
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In the last quarter alone, BMW plug-in hybrid models drove an additional 3.3 million kilometers in electric driving mode within eDrive Zones - equivalent to more than 80 trips around the equator electrically instead of previously used combustion engine.
The carmaker further revealed that BMW plug-in hybrid customers have collected around 150 million points since the introduction of the first eDrive Zone in the summer of 2020, equivalent to around 2.9 gigawatt hours of charging power. A BMW 3 Series Plug-In Hybrid can be charged almost 250,000 times from this amount.
