Swedish manufacturer Cake has unveiled the results of the first year of its project to eliminate carbon emissions from every link in the value chain for the electric Cake Kalk OR bike by 2025.
Launched in 2022 in collaboration with utility company Vattenfall, the ‘Cleanest Dirt Bike Ever’ project is a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) on the Cake Kalk OR bike.
It showed that the production of one bike releases 1,186 kilograms of CO2 equivalent into the atmosphere.
To make the bike’s footprint tangible and inspire the industry to go fossil free, Cake has created a large cube measuring 637 m3, showing the total volume of the bike’s emissions in the production of a single e-motorcycle.
“We would like more companies to use our cube concept because it is very efficient and helps demonstrate the scale of emissions,” Isabella Pehrsson, Cake’s Head of Sustainability, told Zag Daily.
Decarbonising strategy
Each part of the manufacturing process was broken down into smaller components that allowed the company to build a clear picture of exactly where to focus to reduce emissions.
The calculations revealed that, of the total emissions, 57% came from the bike’s drivetrain, with the battery accounting for 29%, suspension 7%, motor 9%, controller 5%, and brakes 7%. The use of aluminium made up 34.1% of the total emissions.
“Our next update will be about our strategy with aluminium, so where we are today and what we are doing about it,” said Pehrsson.
“Our strategy involves finding new suppliers that can deliver cleaner materials and reducing the total amount of materials we use today. We are basically rethinking the whole bike.”
The company has already kick-started discussions with existing and potential suppliers about the possibility of exchanging materials for cleaner ones.
“We’re determined to shrink the size of our cube and all the different parts within it, showing every kilogram of emissions removed from the supply chain until we get to the answer.”
