One bike built to change how all vehicles are made
We’re staring a climate emergency in the face. To avert it, we need to decarbonise every part of our society, and we need to act right now. Industry has a huge responsibility to lead the way to a fossil free society. That includes the automotive industry.
Going fossil free isn’t just about how vehicles are powered, it’s about removing carbon emissions from how they’re manufactured, transported and assembled – the entire production chain. So while electric vehicles are a good start, they don’t take us far enough.
To decarbonise industrial production chains, we need to rip up conventions, break down silos and collaborate far beyond industry borders. That’s why CAKE and Vattenfall teamed up in 2021, combining CAKE's expertise in product innovation with Vattenfall’s expertise in electrifying industries.
Our aim - to produce the first truly fossil free vehicle by 2025, re-inventing every link in the production chain for the electric CAKE Kalk OR bike. Without carbon offsetting, because we need to tackle the root cause, not compensate for it.
Our mission - to inspire industry and policy makers to act. So we’re being radically transparent about our journey, sharing every breakthrough and setback along the way, and open-sourcing our methodology. Because doing it ourselves is great, but inspiring others to do it is even better.
Our plan - to get started. This has never been done before, so when we started out, we didn’t know where we’d end up. But we knew we just needed to get moving – with conviction, openness and enthusiasm. Because we can’t wait until everything’s clear.
We’ve already made great progress, conducting a life cycle analysis on every component of the bike, calculating its full carbon weight and bringing partners on board, who are already producing the first fossil free parts.
In the spirit of transparency, we know that we won’t reach zero emissions in the production chain by 2025. Given what we’ve learned in the last 18 months, it won’t be possible to completely decarbonise every single component in that time frame.
Does that mean we should give up? Absolutely not. We’ll get as close as humanly possible by 2025. We’ll continue to open-source everything as we go. Because an almost fossil free bike by 2025, which has inspired others to act, is better than a 100% fossil free bike which is still on the drawing board.