Hello!
Recently have gotten into maxi scooters and since we’ve switched to an EV for our primary vehicle I was curious if any highway capable scoots had hit the North American market yet.
I know there’s quite a sizeable selection of more aggressive racer style or even upright naked and cross style bikes but one things I’ve really come to appreciate about the scooter form factor is the protection from road grime, especially for when it rains, so that’s why I’m interested in particular in this subset of electric bikes.
It’s pretty much just the BMW CE04 for the time being, it doesn’t really have any direct scooter competitors in NA, just electric motorcycles like the Zeros. It is extremely well built though, it reaps the benefits of BMW making a bunch of other motorcycles in terms of fit and finish.
True. For all the shit people can give BMW about their cars I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone ever complain about their bikes. And looking at it, while the MSRP is giving me sticker shock BMW does seem to throw in a fairly generous warranty period and roadside assistance.
Only concerns I have with the CE04 is I’m really not sure how comfortable that washboard seat would be for trips over 20 km and I’m not clear on how feasible it would be to swap out battery modules if one of them were to degrade or outright die.
Any idea if any reviews or owners blogs/forums have talked about those two subjects?
Speaking from personal experience, my daily commute is about 16km each way and takes 25-30min, and for the most part the seat is comfortable enough for the kind of riding you’re gonna be doing on a CE04. I have done a few longer rides on it and the seat is a little on the firm side once you get past that sort of 45min-1hr mark but not cripplingly so. As for the battery, it’s one monolithic module to my understanding, as it’s actually one module of 11 that makes up the pack from a BMW iX, just configured slightly differently to bring up the overall pack voltage. There hasn’t been any price discussions yet because in most markets, they won’t be hitting warranty expiry for at least another 2 years (for bikes sold early on) or 4-5yrs (for bikes sold after BMW Group upped their warranties across the board).
Not sure about CAN availability, but there is the BMW CE-04 available in the US.
Not usable for 4-7 months of the year and not a common thing in Ontario.
yeah, there are some electric maxi scooters available in Canada. the prices can be pretty steep, though. also, some provinces might require a motorcycle license because of the top speed.
Yeah figured prices would be steep just because of the battery and maxis not being a big enough product segment up here to justify mass scale import so fees per unit must be pretty high for the resellers.
Any recommendations for makes and models? Was looking at the Honda PCX Electric early on given Honda does seem to do oddball imports but I’m not even clear if that was even launched outside Asia.