CFMoto’s Electric Scooter to Rival BMW’s CE-04

It seems that barely a day passes without news of another upcoming project from Chinese motorcycle companies—CFMoto in particular. That brand has been busy working on a large electric scooter. We’ve recently seen that CFMoto still has big plans in terms of internal combustion engines, including the development of a 1,000cc V-4 with more than 200 hp, but there is clearly R&D effort also being poured into electrification, including the machine seen in these pictures from a new patent application.

CFMoto already has multiple electric-bike projects underway. The company’s first substantial effort is the 300GT-E—a sport-tourer with performance equivalent to a 300cc internal combustion engine bike, developed specifically with the needs of the Chinese police in mind. CFMoto also has also launched the Papio Nova, a battery-powered minibike that rivals Honda’s Grom, and it has also created the dedicated “Zeeho” brand for its electric scooters.

It’s under that brand that the latest effort is expected to appear in production form. Late last year Zeeho showed a concept bike, dubbed Magnet, which showed what a large, battery-powered scooter to rival models like BMW’s CE-04 might look like. This new patent appears to show a real-world, production-style version of that scooter.

CFMoto’s information about the Magnet concept said it was capable of a 93 mph top speed and zero-to-30 mph acceleration in less than 2.5 seconds, with a range of 124 miles between charges. Those numbers hinted that there’s more to the vehicle than just as a concept—they’re believable, real-world figures for an electric bike. In contrast, some elements of the concept, notably the transparent side panels exposing the battery packs, were very much style over substance.

The patent shows a scooter with a similar overall stance but a more viable construction. The center section, holding the battery, is made of aluminum rather than plexiglass, and doubles as the main-frame structure. Tubular subframes are bolted onto the front and rear to create the steering head and seat units, creating the flexibility to make multiple different variations of scooters from the same central chassis section.

Like the Zeeho Magnet concept, the patent design features a single-sided swingarm, an inverted fork, and radial-mount brake calipers, as well as an electric motor mounted behind the main chassis, driving a wide rear wheel via a toothed belt. The single shock is mounted on the left of the swingarm, again like the concept bike, but positioned at a more practical angle instead of the horizontal design of the Magnet.

CFMoto’s patent specifically revolves around the cooling for the battery pack, and again illustrates the modular nature of the design. The same basic components can be used to create either air-cooled or liquid-cooled battery packs, with either a finned side panel for air-cooling or a smooth one for the liquid-cooled variant. The liquid-cooled battery would allow higher performance and faster recharging, but at greater expense than an air-cooled version.

The battery modules themselves, inside the alloy casing, are quite unlike the packs used in the Magnet concept. Where the show bike had vertically mounted, swappable batteries, the patent shows two full-length packs, permanently mounted inside the chassis. Whether the Magnet’s other tech ideas, which included front and rear cameras as well voice and touch control systems plus a kinetic-energy recovery system, make it to production remains to be seen, but the patent does appear to confirm the bike’s large, tablet-style instrument display.