BMW C Evolution review

On the left-hand side of the C Evolution’s handlebars is a button marked ‘R’. It doesn’t stand for ‘Race’ or ‘Recharge’. It’s ‘Reverse’. And as you wobble silently backwards, legs paddling furiously to stop yourself falling over, you realise that this really isn’t a normal city scoot.

There’s a name for big, powerful scooters. That name is ‘maxi’ scooters and BMW makes a couple, the C 600 Sport and the C 650 GT, the chassis of which this electric C Evolution is based. Instead of a 650cc engine, there’s an electric motor and brace of lithium-ion batteries. Whereas you need a motorbike licence to ride the petrol models, this C Evolution only requires you to have a car licence, have taken a one-day CBT course and ride with L-plates, like pizza delivery guys.

Except that you’ll be going a lot quicker than those pepperoni-pinchers on their weedy 50cc and 125cc mopeds because BMW’s green machine is mighty powerful.

What’s it like to ride?

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Approaching it in the car park, it has the same edgy styling as the C 600 and C650, but in a more futuristic pearlescent white and green finish. Want something less tree-huggy? Better call your local paintshop. We think the broad flanks and location of the BMW logo would make for an amazing WWII fighter-plane-style shark mouth design, but we’re prone to wild imaginings.

Fraser Macdonald consulting editor

About

Fraser used to wear a Psion Series 3 palmtop in a shoulder holster. Perhaps he still does.Either way, his lifelong mission - including fourteen years for Stuff - has been to see whether the consumer electronics industry can ever replicate that kind of cyborgian joy.So far: nope. Despite a plan to combine a action camera and Olympus Eye-Trek goggles to become Man Who Sees The Vision Of A Man Three Inches Taller Than Himself.He also likes mountain bikes, motorbikes, cars, helicopters. Still thinks virtual surround is witchcraft. Dislikes jetskis, despite never having been on one. 

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