BMW’s electric CE 04 review: it’s motorcycling reimagined

Most scooters make awful noises, like 100,000 cockroaches having shouty sex in a thousand Coke cans. But this one’s different.

Different: the BMW CE 04

If I could somehow go back and speak to the younger, more carefree version of myself there are many things I would tell him. An Apple share a day keeps poverty away; that girl you worship as a goddess is actually Satan in a dress; and journalism has no future, at least in monetary terms. Those are some of the big ones, but I think I would also ask him to examine his sanity and give up his foolish lust for motorbikes, perhaps by pointing out that he will one day realise there’s no point in being bone-marrow frozen, even in exchange for the thrills of speed.

This struck me powerfully the other day when I was called to the northern tip of Antarctica, sometimes known as Melbourne, for the launch of BMW’s new electric scooter, the CE 04. As we slithered across wet streets, being pelted by shards of ice falling from the sky amid squalling winds, I recalled how little this kind of thing used to bother me when I fell into the motoring game by testing motorcycles in the only place on Earth colder than Melbourne, chilly Canberra. I would ride home at night in wind-chill factors of minus 1000 and need to be chipped off the bike with ice axes, and yet I kept doing it. Hugely virile as I was, I believe the reason I never fathered children at the time is because all my sperm were snap frozen, possibly for decades.

Of course, Young Me would have refused point blank to ride an all-electric BMW like this, partly because I considered all BMW motorcycles to be for poseurs, or, worse still, old people, but also because I would have found the idea of an entirely silent bike an affront, and possibly a crime.

On the road

A more modern and worldly wise me, however, recognises that electric scooters are not only a great and practical idea – no one ever uses them for “riding” as such, they are purely tools for commuting, and thus even a claimed range of just 130km is plenty – but a force for good in the world. Scooters, as a rule, make awful noises, like 100,000 cockroaches having shouty sex in a thousand Coke cans, and if I never heard one again it would bother me not a jot. And just imagine how peaceful a city like Rome, or Bangkok, would be if they were all silenced.

While I would argue that motorcycles lose a lot of their soul, or at least their reason for being enjoyed, when you replace their exciting and involving gearboxes (and their blaring exhausts), scooter riders have never bothered with changing gears anyway.

There is, arguably, a safety issue involved in riding a motorcycle that no one will hear coming, giving murderous motorists yet another excuse to say they didn’t know you were there after parking their SUVs on you at high speed, but two-wheeled travel is inherently risky anyway. The BMW CE 04 must make do with just 31kW and 62Nm of torque, which sounds like barely enough to run a lawnmower down a hill, and yet, because electric vehicles are special, it actually feels quite exciting and thrusting to ride.

BMW says it will hit 50km/h in 2.6 seconds, but claims not to know how long it takes to get to 100km/h. Apparently the acceleration tails off significantly above 80km/h, although it will cruise at the national speed limit easily enough.

Being a BMW, it comes with all kinds of connectivity via its big TFT screen, which didn’t interest me as I prefer to keep my eyes on the road when riding, and both heated grips and a heated seat, which are so wonderful that I wept in gratitude, particularly when it started hailing.

The TFT screen

There’s a lovely feeling of solidity to this silent scooter, with its centre of gravity down nice and low thanks to the big battery, and you can flick it through bends with ease, but thanks to the seating position – which brings to mind someone playing a church organ – you’re never going to corner it with great enthusiasm. It also looks suitably modern, as if it was designed by someone whose favourite movie was Tron. In case you’re wondering, that bench seat is as brutally uncomfortable as it looks, but fortunately it’s optional and you can choose to have a comfortable one instead. BMW claims you can charge your CE 04 from 20 to 80 per cent in 4.5 hours by plugging into a normal powerpoint, or in just over an hour if you opt to install a $1300 fast charger.

What makes this machine quite unique, at least for now, is that it’s an electric vehicle that’s borderline affordable, at just under $22,000. BMW says it has already sold out its first shipment, that it has been swamped with orders, and that most people expressed surprise and delight that it wasn’t even more expensive.

Personally, and I think Young Me would agree, it seems like a lot of money for something that won’t even keep you dry when it rains.

BMW CE 04

ENGINE: Permanent magnet liquid-cooled synchronous electric motor (31kW/62Nm). TRANSMISSION: Single-speed, belt driven, rear-wheel drive

PRICE: $21,950

STARS: 3.5 out of 5