At a launch in central London this morning, the former Olympic and World Champion triple-jumper Jonathan Edwards launched the fleet of BMW cars that will ferry the Olympic athletes and officials this summer. BMW is proud of the fact that the fleet is very low-emission. The average is 116 g/km of CO2, which is below the official Olympic target of 120 g/km. According to research by environmental website, www.cleangeencars.co.uk, BMW is now the world’s most efficient car manufacturer in terms of the amount of CO2 emitted for every horsepower generated.

BMW points out that its Olympic fleet has an average power output of 157 bhp, despite its low CO2 figure. In contrast, the average car sold in the UK emits 126 g/km of CO2, but only produces 126 bhp.The fleet will include 160 electrically powered 1 Series in a total of 3200 cars and 25 motorbikes (BMW being one of the very few companies that can supply both cars and motorbikes, of course). About half the total will be BMW 320d Efficient Dynamic models. At 68.9 mpg, they are one of the lowest polluting cars on the road, despite their size and performance.

However, BMW does not make every type of car, so it is having to ship in some MPVs from Citroen – well, it was hardly going to use Mercedes vehicles, now was it?