STILL A WAY TO GO

First ride on BMW Motorrad’s prototype E-Roadster, as part of a privileged visit to BMW Group’s top-secret Miramas Test Centre in the South of France.

- Alan Cathcart

Amongst European automotive manufacturers BMW is a clear leader in embracing electricity, with more than 150,000 examples of its battery-powered i3 E-car sold to date since its 2013 debut as the German firm’s entry into the EV sector, to test the market’s appetite for such cars alongside its mainstream line-up of ICE/internal combustion engined vehicles. One year later came the first such E-product from BMW Motorrad, the C Evolution electric scooter via which it became the first major non-Asian manufacturer to market an electric two-wheeler – five years before Harley-Davidson launched the LiveWire. So far, BMW has sold 6,985 examples of the C Evolution up to the end of November 2019, with annual sales increasing each year as customer interest in EV solutions ramps up.

Since that 2014 debut of its 11kW/15bhp C-Evo scooter, BMW Motorrad has continued to work on producing a much higher performance electric motorcycle, with several different projects under way. The most striking of those disclosed so far has been the Vision DC Roadster showbike unveiled last June as a design study visually evoking the company’s trademark Boxer motor, but with electric propulsion – though it’s not so far run in public. But now BMW has revealed a full working E-prototype to a select group of 27 journalists from around the world invited to visit its top-secret Miramas Test Centre east of Marseille, a former Indianapolisstyle banked-oval speedway which it acquired in 1986, and has constantly updated and enlarged since then. What’s more, we even got to ride it briefly – very briefly!