Part of the reason for slow uptake of ebikes in AUSTRALIA and many other parts of the world is the fact that many of them are classified under motor vehicle legislation as Moped and therefore must be used and registered as a motor bike.
For example.. in my state.. Any bycicle powered by a motor which has an engine capacity greater than 50cc or 200W is classed as a Moped.
In some parts of canada I recall reading somewhere that 500W is the limit, which is a more reasonable figure.
A recent state governent inquiry here in aus (and I'm sure this has been discovered elsewhere) found that standard Ebikes are no more dangerous than any other bicycle. and yet the government did nothing to change the Moped classifications.
I would like to hear other peoples comments and thoughts on what the classification limits are int their area.
My proposal would be to re-classify all non polluting vehicles that use peddle power as their primary source of drive as bycicles unless they have a maximum speed of 60kph or 35mph..
this I believe would lead to an explosion in ebike uptake in many areas of the world.
I believe china has pretty relaxed rules about these forms of transport and look how many of those things are on the road now..
Too quiet? What? Isn't that supposed to be one of the added benfits of electric vehicles?
The point is valid (to an extent) at slower speeds, but kind of moot at higher ones. I don't know about you, but most of what I hear coming from a car doing 30+ is turbulence and tire noise. Of course there are those occasional "hot rodded" cars with a loud (or no) muffler, which is kind of funny the first couple of times you see some crap car like that.
...
Freakin' gangsters...
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