The future of last-mile deliveries in smarter, healthier and greener cities

In the last couple of years, so-called last-mile deliveries have soared to new heights, fueled by the global pandemic that spurred a change in consumer behavior among urbanites all over the planet. The price for our newly found comforts is partly paid for by the environment, with a growing number of delivery vehicles jamming city streets, polluting the air, creating unwanted noise and occupying precious space.

CAKE was formed in 2016 with a clear mission to inspire towards a zero-emission society, by combining excitement and responsibility in its development of light, quiet, and clean high-performance electric motorcycles and mopeds. CAKE aims to speed up the transition to sustainable cities and facilitate significant cuts in emissions by offering solutions and opportunities for businesses striving to develop environmentally sustainable and more efficient services and logistics. Case in point – the aptly named “:work” series, launched in late 2021, is made up of professional-grade electric two-wheeled vehicles aimed at mobile workforces. The new series of vehicles addresses several urgent challenges facing metropolitan areas worldwide.

Cars don’t belong in cities

There are currently two billion fossil fuel-driven vehicles traversing the roads of the planet. Together they emit roughly five gigatons of CO2 annually, a serious contribution to - and de facto driver of - climate change. Adding to this, there are other factors that rarely are discussed but at the same time have serious negative impact. One is the physical footprint of having large vehicles roam around city streets. The vast majority of the time, they’re sitting idle by the curb or residing in inner-city monoliths imaginatively dubbed “multi storey car parks”. Just imagine how all that precious, valuable inner-city space could be used if we would minimize the presence of cars, utility vans and delivery trucks in densely populated areas.

And we haven’t even briefly discussed another form of pollution that we are all acutely aware of - noise. That combustion engines create a lot of noise is a problem that engineers have had to deal with since the dawn of industrialization. No matter the rich plethora of inventions to deal with the problem, physics will be physics and combustion engines will therefore be associated with noise. This is especially bad in an inner city environment, where the often slower pace of vehicles mean that the noise created most often stems from the engines themselves, rather than physical movement (at faster speeds, the sound created by resistance to the ground and air will trump the engine, again we’re not trying to give you a physics lesson here, although it may seem like it). All that noise adds up, ricocheting between buildings, affecting the well-being of people and animals.

Action is being taken

Obviously, there are more than one problem that we need to address. Luckily, steps are being taken to combat what in the past decade have grown into a problem that truly is on top of the collective mind. To date, more than 150 cities around the world have announced restrictions on transportation vehicles using combustion engines. Even more importantly, increased awareness among both consumers and companies organically drive demand for fossil-free delivery options, and markets seemingly respond accordingly.

CAKE offers a two-wheeled solution to urban congestion

There is no quick fix that overnight will solve this comprehensive, sprawling issue. Rather, the solution will come in the shape of concerted efforts, high and low. CAKE believes that offering fossil-fuel free alternatives to urban transportation will have a big impact on life in the city and we already offer a range of products to the market that effectively move last-mile deliveries and mobile workforces away from traditional, fossil-fuel based vehicles. Our solutions clearly exceed the efficiency of cars and trucks, and we know that any industry that handles large volumes of short-haul transportation understands the daily struggle with traffic jams, parking fines and the need to find both economical and sustainable solutions for efficient and respectful deliveries in our cities.

As we like to put it, the future of last-mile deliveries is electric, fossil free and runs on two wheels, like CAKE.