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Swedish mobility company Cake has made a name for itself by creating intriguing two-wheelers that are so damn purposeful in their design that they take on a functional beauty of their own.

Their debut bike, the Cake Kalk& was lauded for this design ethos, though its $14,000 was a deal-stopper for many. The sub-$10,000 Cake Kalk Ink helped things in that regard, but the Swedish brand has still been on the pricier side of the market.

Responding to those feelings, the Swedes have a new, more affordable two-wheeler on the market now.

Say hello to the Cake Makka, which is a downright utilitarian Scandinavian moto that starts at $3,800. 

BMW Motorrad must have some jealousy over what Honda has achieved with its miniMoto lineup, particularly with the Honda Grom, as the latest Bavarian machine takes direct aim at the pint-sized moto market.

Not quite a motorcycle, not quite a scooter, the mini-moto segment has been a surprise hit in the United States and abroad, mostly because of the unassuming and fun machines that flood the market’s ranks.

BMW Motorrad wants in on the action (unsurprisingly) and is looking a bit to the future though, building its Concept CE 02 as a youth-focused electric model.

Husqvarna continues to tout its electric dream, this time showing concepts for two electric scooters that couldn’t be more different from each other.

The first is a proper riding scooter, named the Husqvarna Vektorr. The other, well that’s most like a push-scooter that you’d see from one of those shared urban mobility companies – it’s called the Husqvarna Bltz.

This little gem, the Nito N4, has been burning a hole in our to-do list for far too long, ever since we saw it at the EICMA show in Milan last year. It’s not a big fancy superbike, and it’s not even a proper supermoto.

Instead, the 15hp Nito N4 is just an attractive people-mover that extends the Italian brand’s offering of urban-use two-wheelers.

On that vein, Nito says that the N4 is good for over 90 miles of range, can reach a top speed of 90 mph (150 km/h), and tips the scales at 385 lbs.

I will be honest, I don’t keep that close of tabs on the scooter segment in the motorcycle industry. This is probably because it feels like a separate entity all onto itself. I do try to keep a pulse on the Vespa brand though, and let me explain why.

When you think of scooters, no name is perhaps more iconic than Vespa. So, that makes it an obvious choice, but I also track the movement of the Italian scooter-maker because it acts as a bellwether for the space. Where Vespa goes, surely so too does the rest of the scooter market. 

This is why we have been covering the Vespa Elettrica with a great deal of interest on Asphalt & Rubber. As you can expect from the name, the bike is Vespa’s first electric model, and it is finally ready for public consumption.

Ripping around the streets of Milan, Italy on the the Vespa Elettrica, A&R gets our first feel for what electric urban mobility looks like from Vespa, and we were able to frame that against the company’s other newest model, the potent Vespa GTS Super 300.

As such, here is not-a-review of this intriguing new two-wheeler.

I am actually surprised this idea took this long to come to fruition, but someone has finally built a “Zipcar for scooters” business. For those not familiar with the idea, Scoot promises to offer urban commuters convenient access to its network of electric scooters that it has parked around in major metropolitan areas. From what we can gather, the idea is that members of the Scoot community pay a monthly fee to have access to these scooters (in addition to the hourly-usage rate), and can use the Scoot scooters around to run errands in cities like San Francisco.

According to Autocar, Audi is in the process of developing a two-wheeled vehicle, either a scooter or motorcycle, which is interesting news considering the recency of the company’s purchase of Ducati. Promised not to be a Ducati with an Audi badge, there are not many other details about the news, though intelligent conjecture would imagine the project is along the same vein as the BMW C600 scooter.

Automakers are currently obsessed with the “last mile” concept of people transportation, which foresees ultra-small cars, scooters, and other two-wheeled vehicles doing the bulk of urban transportation in the coming future.

As fuel prices continue to go up, you might be considering another way to go to the movies, meet your friends for coffee, or run a quick errand. Such is the case in an urban city like San Francisco, and, If you’ve ever visited my beloved city, you know how impossible it is to find parking on a Friday night in a trendy neighborhood like the Mission or the Marina. And if you’re lucky enough to find parking after circling the block for 30 minutes, what if your car doesn’t quite fit that awkward spot between two driveways?

Imagine pulling up on a scooter, parking within minutes, and walking right into the restaurant without worrying if you’ve made your reservation on time. You leave your helmet and gloves in the storage compartment under the seat, and sit down to dinner a minute or two early even. If that sounds like a better alternative to the usual metropolitan shuffle, a nimble little ride like the Zuma might be the perfect choice for you.

BMW is latching like a lamprey onto the idea of urban mobility in a big way. In addition to debuting the Husqvarna Concept E-go, zie Germans also launched the BMW Concept e at the Frankfurt International Motor Show today. An electric variant of the BMW Concept C we brought you last year, BMW realizes that when it comes to urban people-movers, the electric power train becomes a ripe contender.

Announcing that it will debut two maxi-scooters by the end of 2011 that address the needs for transportation in urban environments, with the Concept e being the electric component to that two-pronged solution. Though we are certain that the BMW Concept e is an electric maxi-scooter, we should note that BMW’s press release makes conflicting statements about the eletric Concept e, which sees the media communication also state that BMW would debut two maxi-scooters that feature a twin-cylinder internal combustion motor.

It’s Monday, and EICMA hasn’t even officially started yet, but that hasn’t stopped coming out of the Milan venue. To give us you a break from the madness, here is a video of Belgian trials rider Fred Crosset doing what he does best. We’ve been known to do a lot of stupid things here at A&R, but riding a bike on top of the support beams of a bridge is not one of them. Chalk one point up for Belgium, and watch it all the way through for the surprise ending.

Source: The Kneeslider