Cake tests paper as a possible substitute for plastics in electric motorcycles.

CAKE, a Swedish manufacturer of premium lightweight electric motorcycles, announced today a technological partnership with PaperShell to develop a more sustainable alternative to plastics for use in the automotive industry.

“Cake was founded to inspire a zero-emission society, which naturally entails conducting extensive research on the best materials to use in our electric bikes. We’re excited to collaborate with PaperShell and hope to contribute significantly to the development of a material that can significantly reduce or even eliminate the use of conventional plastics in our motorcycles. This is a collaboration that will ultimately benefit the entire vehicle industry and beyond,” Cake’s founder and CEO, Stefan Ytterborn, says.

“We are pleased to collaborate with Cake and look forward to further developing PaperShell into a material that will eventually eliminate the need for plastic.” We can’t think of a more ideal testbed for our material than the industry’s leading electric off-road motorcycle, and we look forward to further developing PaperShell’s inherent resistance to fluids, UV radiation, weather, and fire,” says Anders Breitholtz, PaperShell’s CEO.

A more environmentally friendly alternative to plastic

PaperShell is a natural fiber composite that is stronger than plastic but has a significantly lower climate impact than polypropylene (4.95 kg CO2e) or fiberglass (0.65 kg CO2e per functional unit (kg) of material) (25.05 kg CO2e). Cake will collaborate with PaperShell to assess the material’s properties and potential use as a replacement for certain plastics currently used in the manufacture of premium electric motorcycles.