2012 London Olympics to Go Green with BMW Electric Cars

The electric BMW ActiveE will be used as a VIP vehicle at the 2012 London Olympics.

German automaker BMW has revealed that at least 200 of the VIP vehicles headed to London for the 2012 Olympic games will be of the electric-only variety. According to BMW, the key focus is to make London's Olympic Games the "greenest ever" and a couple hundred zero-emissions vehicles will help the city meet its goal.

Though the majority of the fleet will consist of, ahem, so-called "clean diesels," the high-profile vehicles of the 2012 Olympic Games will be the 200 BMW ActiveE and Mini E electric cars.

The Mini E will appear in London for the Olympic games this summer.

All of the BMWs will make use of VIP-only lanes and it's expected that the fleet of nearly 4,000 Bimmers will be exempt from London's congestion charge, despite the fact that most of the automobiles—although certainly not the Mini E and ActiveE—emit more than London's no-charge limit of 100 g/km of CO2.

While 200 electric vehicles might seem relatively modest, adding that number of zero-emissions automobiles to London's existing electric-only fleet will make the UK's capital city, at least for a few weeks this summer, one of the electric vehicle capitals of the world, exposing millions of people to the virtues of driving without using a drop of petrol.