Despite what the futurists say, an all-electric motorcycle future is still far off. For motorcyclists to adopt electric mobility en masse, battery-powered bikes must strike the same balance between price, performance, and range that petrol-powered bikes nail so effortlessly?and that’ll take time.
Until then, the uptake from dyed-in-the-wool motorcyclists will remain slow. This is why the electric motorcycle industry’s most promising niche is small, approachable machines designated for urban use and pitched at new riders, rather than the old guard?bikes like the quirky BMW CE 02.

Sitting somewhere between a motorcycle and a scooter, the CE 02 offers 11 kW of power, 55 Nm of torque, a top speed of 95 km/h [59 mph], and a claimed minimum range of 90 km [56 miles] in its top spec. At $7,599 for the base model in the US, it’s by no means cheap. But if you look past the blistering price tag, those are respectable numbers for a compact city bopper. It’s also a dandy canvas for customization, according to the fellas at Austria’s Vagabund Moto. Paul Brauchart and Philipp Rabl are best known around here for their avant-garde custom bikes, but they’re more likely to call themselves designers than custom bike builders. They’ve dabbled with several product designs, and have an ever-expanding catalog of custom automobiles that includes a Land Rover, a Lada, and multiple Porsches.

To apply their crisp signature style to the BMW CE 02, Vagabu...