Toyota, BMW, Bosch and Repsol Run 20-Car Renewable Gasoline Trial in Spain

Toyota Motor Europe, BMW Group, Bosch and Repsol have started a six-month pilot in Spain running roughly 20 existing cars exclusively on 100% renewable gasoline, with every litre digitally tracked and certified. The fleet is the seed of an evidence file the four companies intend to put in front of European Union policymakers.

The cars run on Repsol's Nexa 95, a fully renewable gasoline produced from feedstocks compliant with the European Union's Renewable Energy Directive (RED) and compatible with current gasoline engines and existing fuelling infrastructure. Repsol manufactures the entire volume of the fuel at its Poligono Norte facilities inside the Tarragona petrochemical complex.

Bosch supplies the measurement layer. Its Digital Fuel Twin system certifies renewable fuel use across the full life cycle, collecting and verifying refuelling data from several sources including the vehicles themselves, the service stations and fuel card transactions. "Bosch brings full digital transparency to the entire fuel value chain," said Marko Babic, product line head for Digital Fuel Twin at Bosch.

The design point is that nothing new is built. The pilot uses existing Toyota and Lexus passenger cars provided by Toyota Espana and BMW fleet vehicles, requiring no new technology and no infrastructure investment. The trial is meant to show that renewable fuels can be deployed at scale without modifying vehicles or the refuelling network.

Three things are being tested: the availability of renewable gasoline, whether the digital certification technology works, and the use of existing vehicles on the fuel. Repsol is currently the only supplier of 100% renewable gasoline at public service stations in Spain, and the pilot uses that network.

The project sits under the label VEEF, for Vehicles running Exclusively on Eligible Fuels. "Openness to different technologies is a key pillar of BMW Group strategy," said Stefan Heller, who leads VEEF programme development at BMW Group.

The regulatory target is explicit. Pascal Ruch, vice-president for corporate affairs and government relations at Toyota Motor Europe, said the goal of a 100% zero-emission vehicle fleet by 2035 risks not being fully met. The European Union intends in principle to ban sales of new combustion-engine cars from 2035, a plan now under pressure. Late last year it was decided that biofuels are permitted if they cut CO2 emissions by at least 90%. Jan Huitema was the chief negotiator of the 2035 law as a member of the European Parliament, and the law entered into force in 2023.

That 90% threshold is what a certified-fuel data set is built to address. Bosch's tracking chain, running from refinery output through card transactions to vehicle logs, is the instrument that would let a fuel claim survive audit rather than remain a manufacturer assertion.

Repsol frames the case around consumer choice rather than the ban itself. Estibaliz Pombo, deputy director for energy products at Repsol, said renewable fuels can widen consumer options using existing vehicles and infrastructure, and that every solution that cuts emissions has a role in decarbonising transport.

The pilot began in early July and runs six months, according to Diari de Tarragona. Data and initial results will be made available to European Union decision-makers, sector partners and the media. For a global reader, the scale is the point: 20 cars, one refiner, one country, and a certification stack designed to travel further than the fleet does.