BMW's CO2 Emissions Scoreboard Backfires, Drivers Compete To Pollute More

Automakers are forced to go beyond car manufacturing in this day and age. They must give buyers more than just a reliable ride. After all, Tesla proved that you can transform a battery-powered commuting appliance into an entertainment center on wheels.

And since the all-electric Model Y became the world's best-selling vehicle last year, the competition for digitalization and lower emissions heated up tremendously. Of course, government incentives and efficiency regulations also helped with the latter.

However, BMW had to take a different approach, one that would suit a premium-luxury automaker. The brand updated its app and, among many others, offered customers the chance to have each of their driving sessions recorded on a virtual ledger.

You may think that the feature is a gimmick, but it could come in pretty handy for parents of teenagers or for people who lend their cars to friends or family.

Since BMW makes all sorts of drivetrains (from non-hybridized front-wheel-drive diesels to powerful full-on EVs), the automaker wanted to invite its customers to join in on the effort to lower fleet-wide emissions. So, it launched a cool CO2 scoreboard based on trip data BMW owners willingly shared.

The algorithm supposedly measures how much fuel people burn during their driving sessions and establishes a ranking, which is created on a model-specific basis. For example, if you own a plug-in hybrid 5 Series, the app will show if you drove efficiently or not after a few recorded trips.

Do note that this isn't a play to comply with certain government-imposed CO2 targets. The brand just wants to incentivize people to use less gas and, in turn, emit less greenhouse gases.

The problem is that the app turns it into sort of a challenge. The message shown to those who agreed to have their trips recorded might inspire some to have a lead foot.

The app uses all the data it harnesses from BMW drivers, establishes a ranking that users can't see, and compares how efficient their driving behavior was. Then, the app pushes a message that reads, "You emitted more CO2 than X% of other BMW [insert model name here] drivers."

X5 M and M4 Competition xDriver owners, for example, received the same message. Some are now gunning for the top spots, which isn't particularly good. They want to see that they "emitted more CO2 than 100% of other" BMW owners. However, it does boggle the mind why the Bavarian brand chose to tell people who own high-performance conventional rides how large or competitive their carbon footprint is.

Ultimately, this is what happens when thousands of people work together but don't or can't communicate. Departments develop all sorts of products and ship whatever they have to, but they forget about how their initiatives might end up when everything is said and done. Keep in mind that BMW also offers a Drift Analyzer tool to BMW owners.

The good thing about it is that BMW is one of the world's most serious automakers. This could be easily fixed. After all, nobody expects an M8 Competition owner to care about their CO2 emissions. They didn't buy a high-performance coupe to spend less on fuel.