BMW has another go at electric with the new CE 04.
“Urban conurbations are its element.” Learning new words is good and the second word in that sentence is an eye opener, courtesy of BMW. The company states that all of its new urban mobility models (ie scooters and perhaps some small motorcycles) will be purely electric. The first of the two wheel variety is the CE O4 electric scooter which will be available in North America. The futuristically designed scooter is said to be capable of 42hp from its 8.9-kWh battery cell and a top speed of 75 mph with a 80 mile range.
From the many variations of placement of electric motors, BMW chose to mount the CE 04’s liquid-cooled electric motor in the frame between the battery and the rear wheel. Plugged into a standard outlet the battery will recharge in four hours and 20 minutes or with the optional quick charger the time drops to one hour 40 minutes.
Like its ICE counterparts, the CE 04 comes with stability control, traction control, cornering ABS and riding modes include a “Dynamic” mode that allows for faster acceleration. All info is relayed to the rider by a 10.25-inch TFT colour screen. There are LED lights all around and a side accessed storage compartment under the seat large enough for a full face helmet. So it maintains the tradition of fancy bits and pieces so often found on other BMW Motorrad offerings.
The styling is referred to as “future oriented,” but who knows what scooters are going to look like by 2050? Certainly, the CE 04 does not look like anything available today. Interestingly, the CE 04 comes to market looking very much like the original CE concept electric scooter revealed back in 2017 – (so the future hasn’t changed much in the intervening years?). The price is $11795 (base MSRP US$) and for comparison to other BMW scooters, consider the C400X scooter which features a single cylinder, 350cc gasoline engine producing a factory-spec 34 hp, and a $8295 (MSRP US$) sticker.
BMW previously featured the C Evolution scooter in its lineup although that electric machine was not available in North America. The C Evolution produced from 2014 to 2020 was a more traditionally designed scooter based more on the look of the existing C 600 Sport scooter and seemed most popular with municipal services in a variety of European locales. Many of the C Evolution’s specs were similar to the new CE 04 in terms of range and speed although a Long Range variant of the earlier scooter allowed for further rambling with 100 miles of juice in the battery. That scooter was however a much larger machine topping out at a robust 583lbs compared to the 508lbs CE 04.