If you have a dream bike, you might be looking at bikes from a handful of brands. You have Ducati, Harley Davidson, Triumph, and the likes. Then there is one from Germany; you have BMW Motorrad.
The Bavarian automotive giant has been one of the leading brands in motorcycles forever. They are right up there with the likes of Ducati and Triumph. At this point, they are also the maker of one of the most powerful production motorcycles in the world, the BMW S 1000 RR superbike.
They are not all about making fast bikes though. They make some of the most practical motorcycles for all kinds of purposes. What they did not make before is a scooter, until now. This one is special though.
We start with what you might ask about with electric vehicles; how far does this go? The BMW CE 04 packs an 8.9kWh battery, not your regular laptop battery capacity. That battery offers up to 130km in range from a single charge. It is a lithium-ion battery that can be charged via a regular wall socket you have at home or a quick charging port for cars. Through regular wall sockets (2.3Kw output), you get a full charge in just four hours and 20 minutes. If you can get it to a quick charger at 6.9kW you cut the charging time by 40 minutes.
Power? It is a single liquid cooled magnetic electric motor powering the rear wheels on this one. The motor drives the wheels via a single-gear toothed belt transmission. That transmission puts 31kW on the wheels and then to the road and 62Nm of torque available immediately when you throttle the motorcycle. With that kind of power, you can bring the electric motorcycle to 180 km/h at the top, faster than some fully electric cars even. To make sure that it stops properly, the BMW CE 04 gets twin disc brakes.
All these techs are wrapped in a body unlike any BMW motorbike. To be fair, it looks like a rather bulky urban scooter. Underneath the pretty panels are tubular steel frame to ensure that the motorbike is rigid enough to handle the hustles and bustles of city travels. The modern design also allows the CE 04 to have a “floating” seat look.
Up front is a telescoping fork attached to the front wheel. Out the back is a single sided swing arm with fully covered spring strut. Riding in the dark should prove no problem too with BMW’s LED Adaptive Headlight Pro in the headlamp for both high and low beams. Alongside daytime running lights, the headlamp also offers special light functions for “welcome and “goodbye”.
The BMW CE 04 also comes with four riding modes. You choose between “ECO”, “Rain”, “Road”, and “Dynamic” for optimized rides in any situation you might put the bike in. All of these can be accessed via a modern looking 10.25-inch TFT colour display with Integrated Map Navigation. If you have BMW Motorrad’s Connected App, you can even check the CE 04’s status and even ride statistics.
Availability
BMW has not announced its official availability in Malaysia just yet. The preview means that BMW is planning to bring the CE 04 into the country soon though. They have not announced any pricing too at this time. All we can do is wait for BMW Motorrad to make the announcement later in the year.