BMW C evolution scooter
My friend and colleague John L. Stein is one of, if not the most, respected motorcycle journalists alive. He has been writing about motorcycles since the Nixon administration. Stein needed a BMW C evolution at his house and I happened to have one. I knew his house was a hike from mine, but who was I to argue with such a distinguished figure in my field? No one, that’s who I was. So I said, “Sure!”
It was only after saying “sure” that I actually looked at Google maps. His house is 109 miles away. This was a problem because even on its best day the C evolution can only go 99 miles on a full charge, according to BMW, and my preliminary jaunts on the thing suggested the actual mileage figure was much less than that.
The C evolution has a hefty (for a scooter) 12.7 kWh battery driving the rear wheel through a shaft mounted to the craft’s single rear swing arm. The whole thing’ll put out 53 lb-ft of torque, which will get you away from stop lights muy pronto, despite a curb weight of 606 pounds.
Before the trip to Stein’s house, I took a dry run up and back from my house to the popular motorcycle destination of Newcomb’s Ranch high in the San Gabriel Mountains, a round-trip distance of 75 miles with an elevation gain of almost 5000 feet. As they say, your mileage will vary. It didn’t help that I was riding the C evolution like a sport bike for the first half of the trip, even on the uphill stretches. Electrons were fleeing from the 94-Ah battery pack like adults at a Justin Bieber concert. But it wasn’t until a little over halfway to Newcomb’s at an elevation of 4000-something feet, that I noticed the battery gauge. Doing some quick math in my head, I figured there was no way I would make it the rest of the way to Newcomb’s and all the way back, even accounting for the regen I’d get on the downhill return run. When I’d left my house at 99 percent charge, the gauge said expected range was 66 miles which, of course, I ignored.
But I wanted to get to Newcomb’s. So I switched the ride mode from “sport” to “sail.” This disengages the electric motor when you release the accelerator. You get no regen but you also get no drag. Or almost no drag, as it turned out. Sail mode didn’t mean I could roll like a carbon fiber Tour de France bicycle. There is still some resistance. Creeping along through the trees was actually quite pleasant, like hiking without the exertion. I had to keep a close eyeball on any traffic that might be coming up from behind me, but thus equipped I arrived at Newcomb’s with less than half a "tank" and a slight concern about whether I’d get back.
The bikers parked all over the front of that fine establishment showed interest in the odd-looking electric-green thing that just pulled up.
“What? What is it? Why is it?” asked one guy who had, remarkably, ridden a Honda Ruckus all the way up there.
On the way down I hypermiled like a champion and by the time I was back on the freeway I still had 38 percent charge, more than enough to take the freeway home like a proper gentleman instead of sneaking about on surface streets and hitching tows by grabbing the loading ramps of passing trucks.
Thus stocked with range and riding knowledge, a couple days later I departed for Stein’s. I recruited fellow biker Mike Ditz, who rides another BMW, an R1200 GSA. It has a range of 400 miles. There are advantages to gasoline. We were to meet at the Trader Joe’s in Culver City because there’s a charger there.
Off I rode, with 100 percent charge and an indicated 72 miles of range.
Of course, when I arrived in Culver City, the Trader Joe’s outlets were all Level 3 CHAdeMO connectors or something, which I couldn’t have used even if I’d wanted to. The loan J1772 connector required a Blink charge account, which I had, but the little key fob for which I had forgotten at home. Same with the little key fob for the ChargePoint network (I later learned you can activate the ChargePoint charger through your smart phone if you download the free app).
I had to think and think fast. I remembered seeing on some EV charging map somewhere that there was an EV charger on the Santa Monica Pier. I texted Mike the updated plan and off I rode. There was, indeed, a charger at the pier, and it was free. You just had to pay $2 an hour to park there. So, with 67 percent state of charge and 66 miles of indicated range, I plugged in to an ancient, rusty Clipper Creek J1772 Level 2 charger on the old wooden pier and sat back to wait for Mike.
BMW C evolution scooter receives a vital intake of juice on the Santa Monica pier
An hour later, with Mike ready to act as my wingman, the C evolution was 94 percent full with 92 miles of range to complete the remaining 89 miles to Stein’s. Being a realist, however, I realized that I’d have to plug in at least one more time to make it. I recalled seeing a charger at Cross Creek Market in Malibu. Sure enough, there it was, 12.2 miles north of the Santa Monica pier -- with a Volkswagen eGolf hogging it. I stared at the eGolf a while, hoping the owner would come out of Starbuck’s and offer to let me plug in. But the greedy bastard stayed inside.
I did not give up. I cruised the parking across the street and voila, another charger! And it was free! I plugged into it with 80 percent charge left and an indicated range of 76 miles. We ate lunch. The charging was free but the lunch was $24. I began to suspect the whole EV thing was a profit deal.
Another hour later I had 96 percent charge good for an indicated 92-mile range. Stein’s was around 70 more miles, which made it seem like I could get there. But the little readout, like a bad girlfriend, had been lying to me the whole time. Plus, this last stretch would have to be done at no more than 55 mph in order to keep me from getting squashed by traffic like a flat piece of road kill.
An adventure is when you don’t know what’s going to happen next.
We set off, as close to 55 mph as possible, with the range and state of charge creeping down like a freshman’s GPA in a college he’d gotten into by wildly overstating his intelligence. Click, 80 percent state of charge. Click, 70 percent, Click, 60, 50, 40, it was dropping like Buster Douglas in a Mike Tyson rematch. The last run was on the 101 with nowhere to hide and nowhere to go slow. Mike gallantly rode behind, blocking traffic, ready to take the first hit from the first angry trucker. I stayed at 55 mph no matter what calamity might ensue. There was no hoping to stop and recharge -- who knew what these depraved beach-dwellers would do if we showed up in a stranger’s driveway with an emergency charge cable in one hand, begging for electricity? Click, click, click.
Finally, miraculously, I pulled off the 101 at Stein’s exit and crept uphill the last couple miles to his house. As I pulled into the driveway, the state of charge gauge read “zero percent.” Like Bluto Blutarsky’s grade point average at Faber College.
What did it all mean? Well, while electric cars continue to get more and more range from ever-bigger and/or more efficient batteries, the lowly electric scooter, with only so much room for batteries, has to do more with less.
Zero SR Motorcycle
The stylish C evolution has been on sale in Europe since 2014 but has only been here in the States a few months. We Americans are a little less scooter-receptive than the Europeans. They have to squirt through crowded streets and park wherever they can find room. We insist on large SUVs and have wide open Interstates on which to drive them, as well as parking spaces as big as their apartments. Plus, they have the history of the Vespa. So prying open the door of the U.S. market and riding scooters in is a little more of a challenge for a manufacturer than, say, trying to sell BMW M4s.
While Vespa has been on sale here through Cushman since 1961 and officially through Piaggio since 1975, Americans were never fully scooter-happy. So getting anyone to buy a scooter of any kind is going to be tough. It’ll need some sort of gimmick like, say, electricity!
Speaking of which, I’d much rather have a Zero electric motorcycle, which is approximately 400 times more fun to ride and offers 89 miles of range for $10,995 or 206 miles range for $13,995. But that’s just me. Maybe it’s you, too. Hopefully it’ll eventually be others.
Vehicle Model Information
ON SALE: Now
BASE PRICE: $13,750
AS TESTED PRICE: $13,750
POWERTRAIN: Liquid-cooled electric-drive motor
OUTPUT: 53 lb-ft at 4650 rpm
CURB WEIGHT: 606 pounds
FUEL ECONOMY: 99 miles range (mfg.)
FUEL ECONOMY: 70 miles range
PROS: Clean and cheap electric power
CONS: Looks a little goofy, seating's a little awkward
