Cake close in on zero carbon
Progress carbon-free production plan
Cake Motorcycles founder Stefan Ytterborn has updated MCN on plans to build the first truly fossilfree bike by 2025. The Swedish firm calculate that building one of their electric-enduro-style Kalk ORs produces about 1.2 tonnes of carbon dioxide but working with energy company Vattenfall they hope to inspire others to make the change. And the latest news is that Öhlins have come onboard to provide the forks and shock for the eco-machine.
“It’s moving at pretty high speed,” Ytterborn told MCN. “We’re potentially going to make the actual bike in fossil-free steel, instead of doing it in aluminium.
“There’s a lot of chasing and tracing materials – both virgin materials as well as finding treasures of recycled material that we can re-activate, so it’s a really exciting process.
“It’s one of the projects where we invest the most time and resources and again, I would say we would never be able to do a project like this unless we had Vattenfall behind us, because the level of resources being invested is far beyond what our own ability would’ve been.”
Ytterborn says that between five and 10 firms a week are now making contact to get involved, but he recognises there are still plenty of difficult hurdles to overcome. The firm are now in talks with the owners
‘The project is moving at a high speed’
of a disused copper mine in northern Sweden which could be used to supply motor parts and wiring in general. Bigger challenges in the zero carbon quest will include circuit boards and tyres but Ytterborn remains optimistic.