BMW EV Dashboard
An interactive dashboard that shows the impact of electric vehicles on the environment and your wallet
Brief
The biggest barrier to EV adoption wasn't price or technology, it was range anxiety, the fear of running out of charge. We designed and built the BMW EVolve iOS/Android app to counter it directly. Rather than telling drivers that 90% of US drivers travel less than 100 miles a day, the app showed them by tracking their actual driving habits and highlighting the benefits they'd experience if they switched to an EV.
BMW came back asking for a second product to complement it: an online application built around four energy history documentaries they had produced.
Approach
BMW had a story to tell, the personal, financial, and environmental advantages of driving electric. We also had a site, BMWActivatetheFuture.com, built to tell it. Having already built the app, we knew the strongest version of that story wasn't a history of energy, but that of each user's own commute data, aggregated and reflected back at them.
We proposed connecting the web experience directly to the app, so the story wasn't told in general terms but through real trips, real savings, and real environmental impact, personal to each visitor.
We transformed their campaign site into a platform that made EV ownership personal
BMW came in asking for a documentary-driven energy history site. Having designed and built the BMW EVolve app, we knew the app's real commute data and growing user base made a far more compelling product possible, one that showed drivers their own success story rather than a general argument for electric vehicles.
BMW America agreed, and BMWActivatetheFuture.com became the platform that connected that personal story to the broader campaign.
Customer Journeys
Real commute data made the EV calculator personal, not hypothetical
Most EV calculators ask users to estimate their mileage. Because the dashboard connected to the BMW app's logged trips, the CO₂ emissions comparison, fuel consumption figures, and savings calculations were drawn from each user's actual commutes, helping them compare their current needs and costs with the savings and potential of BMW's electric vehicles.
For visitors without the app, manual trip entry and national averages kept the tool fully functional as a standalone experience on BMWActivatetheFuture.com.
Personal experiences made behavioural change visible and shareable
The dashboard tracked how users drove and what impact an EV would have had on each trip. Different driving behaviours earned different badges—a visible, collectible record of commute patterns and EV compatibility. Users could also generate a personal environmental report showing their cumulative financial and CO₂ impact over time.
This gave the BMW Activate The Future campaign a social and behavioural layer that extended well beyond the data.
Badges
Users would earn badges after many milestones. The more they drove, the more badges they earned.
User Environmental Report
A report where users could see the personal, financial, and environmental impact of an EV through their own data.
Results
Two connected products: the BMW Evolve iOS/Android app tracking real commute data, and the BMW EV Dashboard on BMWActivatetheFuture.com aggregating that data into personal savings, CO₂ impact, badges, and reports. The dashboard also worked as a standalone tool for non-app visitors. The campaign won awards. The BMW ActivE was sold out in less than a year.
2 connected products · 1 award-winning campaign · real commute data · personal EV impact at scale · a successful, sold-out product · thousands of satisfied users