I tend to agree with comments that point out that 'modern' e-bikes are really electric motor cycles or the original "MoPed" from the 60's. And they have the same appeal, relatively cheap to operate, fit in between regulatory categories, don't require a garage to store, Etc. E-scooters aren't much better (just worse kinematics). That said, I never thought the Segway was ever going to be more than a 'niche' product whereas I had already lived in a city[1] with thousands of mopeds. To the extent they are embraced by urban planners with reduced parking mandates and their own roadways I think they are a net win for cities, when they terrorize pedestrians on sidewalks, not so much.
There are plenty of modern ebikes that are just bikes with a motor. I have one of these for instance (well, the previous generation): https://ride1up.com/product/roadster-v3/
The best description I've seen of using it is "cycling without hills".
The fact that we use the same name for these and "low speed electric motorcycles" is... unfortunate.
I think that the Class 1 and Class 2 and Class 3 regulations when properly followed tell you what you are getting. Since this is Class 3, it really is close to a Moped and has a lot more restrictions depending on your area similar to a motorcycle but still allowed on city streets without insurance in most places in the USA, but often has restrictions in parks etc.
The problem is that many other manufacturers have “selectable” class which really is meaningless and doesn’t really tell you what you are buying and often times is really close to a motorcycle. But unlike cars you can easily import bikes that don’t conform to the regulation so many don’t.
If I were buying a bike for my young child I would stick to class 1 or 2.
I agree, the classifications are pretty solid when followed and I'm with you on class 2 being the right pick for most people - But I'd argue they're too complicated.
I think it's also a social issue right now, there's very little general information provided to bikers (ex - most people don't even know these classifications exist, and can't remember them if they do), and not a large enough chunk of the population is biking yet to get a general consensus on "acceptable" behavior.
Couple that with low enforcement, and it makes sense a fair number of people are just clueless.
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Just simple things like "bike speed limit" signs on trails/paths would probably help a lot.
I have a class 3 ebike, and I'd still 100% prefer to ride it on a trail with a speed limit of 20mph instead of having trying to mingle with cars on even moderatly busy streets.
The laws should let bikers understand the desired behavior, and allow them to self-regulate.
Especially given that this isn't in the same risk category as larger vehicles (e-bikes are half the weight of mopeds, and 28mph is very different than 45)
Then give folks tickets. They're too useful to go away - we'll get it figured out.
I think the MPH limit for ebike classification makes sense. But why do they need a 750W limit? Whats the harm in a motor putting out 3000W to get a loaded cargo bike up a steep hill at 8 MPH.
> a motor putting out 3000W to get a loaded cargo bike up a steep hill at 8 MPH
Probably two reasons to avoid this. Practically, it's more expensive because not only do you have a 3kW motor but everything else must handle the increased demands. It just gets more expensive all around just for a niche case equivalent of "everyone needs a truck to carry 16 sheets of drywall and 12 2x4s".
The second is that regulators were reasonably pragmatic. Top speed, peak power, and weight are good proxies for safety, rather than having to regulate every aspect of a bike's operation like with cars. Bikes are spending most of their time on flat ground on city streets where huge power/torque are not just unnecessary, they're dangerous. Already plenty of e-bikes are going all out (governors are easily bypassed) on sidewalks and bike lanes where the others have 100W "motors". In my otherwise very civilized part of the world, every day I ride I almost get run over by assholes on full blown motorcycles speeding on the bike lane because it's faster. I have never, ever seen one get a fine. Nobody can do enforcement of safety at rider level especially for very lightly regulated and unregistered vehicles.
> Nobody can do enforcement of safety at rider level especially for very lightly regulated and unregistered vehicles.
I don't particularly buy this. I think we've spent very little time and effort actually trying.
I also think that the lax enforcement as it currently stands is a pretty practical take... My read is that ebikes (even the class 3s) aren't actually out there killing people in crashes all that often.
Of the folks who are dying on bikes... the majority of the deaths are still happening due to collisions with motor vehicles. The second largest cause of death is the rider dying due to lack of helmet usage coupled with the higher speeds.
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Basically - I agree we should improve social patterns for not being a dick on a fast bike in mixed-use spaces.
But if we're talking about actual benefit to safety... the problem is still the cars and not the bikes. At least for now (again - it's shifting because e-bikes are just useful as all get out).
Your first point feels like it should easily be handled by regular market forces, ie no one can produce one in a price range anyone would want to buy.
I would suggest that the only good reason to have a peak power limit in law on the engine is so that if you unlock it/chip it you can't blast off at 60mph. But at that point you're breaking the speed limit either way, so I'm still not convinced a peak power limit is reasonable.
I have a powered bike that limits the speed to the lawful limit, but the engine has 500w instead of 250w, meaning my bike is better at getting up hills than my wife's. I don't think this should be illegal, and if I want to pay for a stronger engine, that is reasonably up to me.
That nobody is enforcing the speed limit on bike lanes is an enforcement issue, and it doesn't get solved by having unnecessarily tangential laws. And I'm certainly not a "deregulate everything" person.
> should easily be handled by regular market forces
I think we've heard this blurb so many times it should be a joke to be ridiculed by now. It usually prefaces a story about some abusive, exploitative action.
> But at that point you're breaking the speed limit either way, so I'm still not convinced a peak power limit is reasonable.
That's why I said that enforcement at rider level is impossible. The burden to check if someone removed some governor is so high that it might as well not be regulated in any way. Or you heavily strengthen and give an even broader mandate to LEO, and I hear that's what everyone wants more of these days.
So the easy way around this is to regulate the manufacturing or sales. You limit the power of the motor, you implicitly limit how fast the bike can realistically go, and how much weight it can carry at speed. This makes things a little bit safer. If you need more, choose a different vehicle. You don't buy a Fiesta and then shout in the wind that it's not allowed to have 18 wheels and carry 35t.
> That nobody is enforcing the speed limit on bike lanes is an enforcement issue, and it doesn't get solved by having unnecessarily tangential laws
I get that you really want something but this isn't an argument. The laws aren't "tangential" they are very much on point, trying to keep a balance between usability and safety faced with practical reality. Not the wishy-washy "the market will handle it" or "I should get it because I want it and anyone stopping me is stupid". The law allows every kind of vehicle for every need, under the appropriate conditions. You just think your conditions for your needs come first. Some people ride like that so the "tangential laws" exist to protect others from them.
The “market handling it” would mean liability lawsuits followed by mandatory liability insurance, with insurers installing telemetry devices on an ebike to decide how much to charge you or even just drop you as an uninsurable risk altogether.
In other words enough people would have to get hit and killed that there would be a huge series of lawsuits. In that scenario those people are still dead.
“The market handling it” is why there are hordes of cars with purposefully loud mufflers blasting past my house at many hours of the day. My state chose to make it illegal to build something like that but it’s perfectly legal to sell the parts. So the market did what the market does.
> The “market handling it” would mean liability lawsuits
Amazon and Temu sell so much illegal and dangerous junk and no lawsuit changed this. People still get hurt or killed by battery fires, malfunctioning products, intoxication with all kinds of chemicals.
> followed by mandatory liability insurance
People complain that they have to wear a helmet. They won't be fine with mandatory liability insurance. The level of bike theft shows that bikes are notoriously untraceable, it's very hard or prohibitively expensive to enforce this.
> with insurers installing telemetry devices on an ebike
Raises costs, requires cloud services and connectivity, and the owner can still hack the antenna off or shield it and the bike is now permanently offline but with no way to detect that on the street.
Amazon and Temu aren't allowed to sell cars, because we still regulate our cars somewhat, so the cars that are sold in America and Australia and other places have to meet certain safety requirements. The manufacturer is also 100% liable for things like recalls or safety defects, regardless of which dealer sold it to you or if you bought car used.
You can say people "won't be fine with mandatory liability insurance". That's what it's "mandatory". If you get caught operating a vehicle without one, you might just well lose your vehicle and have it impounded on the spot, have to pay a hefty fine, and have to prove you have insurance before you're allowed to drive again.
Insurers can and do detect if your telemetry stops transmitting - for example, State Farm offers a substantial discount if you transmit telemetry. If you sign up for this and then yank the device out, they simply charge you a higher rate.
We also have things like "helmet laws". You can't (for example) operate a motorcycle in California without a helmet. If you do, you'll get pulled over and ticketed and are stuck being unable to ride it away until someone either brings you a ticket or you go for a nice long walk and get one yourself, with a high chance your bike gets impounded from the side of the road.
I don't know why the attitude persists that the government can't regulate things and enforce laws. They certainly can.
Sorry but your post is all over the place. It's not nice to introduce random things in a conversation and force anyone who wants to respond to you to address all that randomness.
> I don't know why the attitude persists that the government can't regulate things and enforce laws. They certainly can.
Who said anything about government regulation? The latest part of the thread was about "the market" handling it, you yourself even said "with liability lawsuits", now you talk government regulation which is the opposite of that.
> Amazon and Temu aren't allowed to sell cars
Who said anything about cars? We're talking bicycles and other things people want to stay unregulated. They sell bad products and "the market" didn't handle it, not with lawsuits or regulation or enforcement. So many ebikes were catching fire in my complex while charging that the administration banned even storing ebikes in the underground parking or the individual storage units. The importer of the bikes (Amazon store?) was of course dissolved by that time.
> because we still regulate our cars somewhat
Who said anything about car regulations? That's exactly what people don't want with bicycles. Look at this discussion, people want to pretend even mopeds should still be called "just bikes" so they stay unregulated. The whole point of a bicycle is to be a simple unregulated vehicle with minimal capabilities. Not multi kilowatt motor vehicle that can carry heavy loads up a hill at speeds that most people barely cycle on the flat.
> You can't (for example) operate a motorcycle in California without a helmet.
Who said anything about motorcycles? You can operate a bicycle without a helmet because people weren't fine with mandatory helmet laws. Just like it will happen with "mandatory liability insurance and telemetry" for bikes. It might happen when we all live in a dystopia where everything you do is tracked, or for some bicycles that aren't really bicycles (mopeds and higher categories).
Whoever wants powerful motors or high carrying capacity should stop calling it "a bicycle" and call it a "moped" or "S-Pedelec". These already require insurance and a license plate. There are enough categories here [0] to cover all needs. Pretending everything on 2 wheels is a bicycle does cyclists a disservice and is like calling my car "an umbrella" so I'm allowed to take it everywhere with me.
My opinion is been that 747’s, cars, trucks, bikes, E bikes, an even pedestrians should be regulated on kinetic energy - basically their ability to do harm to others.
My fear is that without it, regulatory arbitrage will turn every inch of land that doesn’t have a building into Death Race 2000. Cars are not allowed on sidewalks to protect friends? No problem - here’s an electric motorcycle disguised as a bicycle. Hi
Doing some quick math, if your bike is using 3kw to climb a reasonably steep (15% grade) hill at 8mph, we can calculate the weight it must be carrying, which ends up being about 1,200lbs
To answer your question, the limit on motor power exists as a proxy for limiting the weight, speed, and acceleration of ebikes within safe limits, since having an ebike charging uphill at 20mph with 500lbs of payload would present actual safety risks. Trying to regulate payload/speed/slope combinations directly has practical problems (police officers don't really want to stop delivery drivers to weight their cargo), while regulating motor power is much simpler.
You don't need 3000W, 1kW is plenty. I have a Yuba Mundo (one of the biggest long-tail cargo bikes) and my Bafang motor tops out around 1kW and it's plenty even for the biggest hills here in Bloomington (which is quite hilly).
The problem I see with the e-bikers is that they just can't ride even at 20 mph. They don't fall off the bike because it moves fast enough but otherwise they are completely inept: break with the rear wheel only, can't stay in the lane, can't corner, don't signal turns, don't warn when passing etc.
20 mph is a moderate speed for a road bike, however, you need to ride a lot to comfortably get to this speed and as a result, when you get there, your skills are adequate. A roadie riding 20+ mph is not going to enter a blind corner in a left lane or skid out trying to maneuver around some trash on the path. Why should we punish people who bike for exercise? It's not like e-bikers are going to wipe much less at 20 mph, your 100 lbs "sauron" without front brakes is going to skid even at 10 mph.
Adjusted for inflation the Segway would be close to $10,000 today after taxes.
That price tag and the way overhyped lead up to it's unveiling combined to kill any chance the Segway had. Dean's (RIP, I think) vision might have had a chance if it wasn't the same price as a lightly used new-to-me Kia Sephia.
At even half the $5000+ price it would have found a lot more adoption. Tourism companies still use the shit out of them and once they start dumping them, I bet they'll be the cool thing to have.
In pretty much all of Europe e-bikes with a throttle are considered a type of mofa/motorcycle (depends on top speed) and come with all kinds of additional rules, such as needing insurance, mandatory helmets, having to drive on the road, license plate requirement and at type of motorcycle driving license for the fast ones.
Here in the UK, only pedelecs are exempt from road licensing laws, so the throttle bikes aren't legal to use on public roads. Additionally, they have to stop providing assistance at 15.5mph or so. However, it's common to see riders illegally using throttle based bikes (e-motorbikes really) on the roads.
This thing has 500W hub motors, no expensive derailleur, no chain to maintain, just tires and brakes. The hub motors have internal gearing. I love mine for getting around LA.
If I understood the article correctly in this case the pedals are not physically connected to the wheel, it states the pedals run a generator that charges the batteries. So for this specific bike it would actually be possible to remove the belt (save for the other disadvantages of a hub motor).
This Rivian bike is bizarrely "pedal by wire" - there is no physical connection between the pedals and the rear wheel.
Instead the pedals work as a throttle to set the speed of the motor and to charge the battery while you ride, reducing depletion speed. It also harvests energy when braking.
If the battery in this bike dies completely, or is removed, you cannot pedal to move it at all. The "toothed belt" (gates drive) connects to the motor, with no link to the pedals.
In theory this design could have been done with no chain/gates drive using hub motors and still work much the same, given all the pedals are really doing is turning a dynamo-contraption to charge a battery.
My bike vendor likes chains. They wear more easily, but are easy enough to maintain and change. Basically everything old school bike like has maintenance/repair advantages.
I'm not sure I agree, but more when compared with belt drive and internally geared hub. But then again, I believe him that those are hard to repair when they fail (even if they are sturdy until then).
I also prefer shaft drive over a chain. Much less hassle and if not punished, can be almost maintenance free. A chain is easily worn and can even rust away just sitting there.
Not really if you just keep it lubed. I have a BMW shaft drive bike, and I have to change the rear end oil, the driveshaft oil, the transmission oil and the engine oil every year. My Honda just needs the chain lubed, adjusted, and engine oil changed. You check it every 600-1000 miles or so, but I can adjust and lube the chain in about 5 minutes.
After seeing yet another brutal accident of an ebike yesterday, I suspect regulation is coming, including requiring drivers to be licenced the same way motorcycle operators are, vehicles registered the same way, and liability insurance required.
When school ends, I often see middle and high schoolers riding cheap (and extremely fast) e-bikes through the neighborhood, frequently blowing through stop signs and generally breaking every road rules. So it's just matter of time before it all gets over-regulated.
and by a cheap bike I mean something like these "bikes":
Same here, a local woman was recently impaled by an ebike. I doubt they'll require licenses but they will start banning them on busy bike / pedestrian trails.
The comments you are agreeing with: there's a lot about mopeds and drivetrains and Class 1/3, and yet nobody sees that this piece of shit doesn't even have fenders?
Yes, the bikes in the pictures do not have fenders. However, if you look at the press coverage, there are lots of studs on the frame for adding everything from cargo racks to front pannier wine bottle holders. That makes me unwilling to dismiss it out of hand. It is pretty clear that for this launch they were going for a 'look' and no doubt some designer at Also chose what configurations they would show.
My daily rider is a Trek Verve 2 (not electric) which Trek has a 'beauty shot'[1] of which features it without fenders. That said, mine has fenders because I don't like getting muddy water thrown up my back when I go through a puddle.
So my take here is that yes, this is a rather 'bougie' e-bike with pretentious design presentations, but if the engineers did their job correctly I expect you'll be able to equip it with fenders and other gear that you find essential on something you ride.
Are people going to pedal on these things? Mopeds could also be pedalled if stalled -unlike scooters. I mean, sure, I know their form factor is that of a bike --but its locomotion is more similar to that of a e-moped. Unfortunately with very lousy seats. At moped and these ebike speeds you want better seating.
Yes. There are e-bikes that look like motorcycles or mopeds that can be pedaled, but are uncomfortable, and there are e-bikes that look vespa style scooters that have pedals but it's completely impractical to pedal them - the pedal operation is there to qualify under specific requirements to be classified as an e-bike.
[1] Brussels.