It’s official: E-bikes are actually bikes, not ‘motor vehicles,’ according to new EU rules
It’s official: E-bikes are actually bikes, not ‘motor vehicles,’ according to new EU rules
The EU Court of Justice yesterday ruled that e-bikes are actually bikes, not motorbikes, which means e-cyclists aren’t obligated to be insured in the same way as motorists.
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I'm sure that if you see the fine print, this means that pedal-assist ebikes that have 250W motor and are limited to 25kph (15mph) are considered bicycles. Something like a Surron is still considered a motorbike and needs to be registerated, insured, needs a licence and is only allowed to be driven on the roads among cars - as they should.
That's not a fine print, that's a definition for ebikes. Surron is 100% a motorbike. They don't even look like bicycles and never targeted the bicycle market.
It's a spectrum and the limits are quite arbitrary. Plenty of people would agree that Surron is a motorbike, but some of those same people want to be able to drive without pedaling, have more powerful motor than 250W, go faster than 25kph or all of the above.
There's no spectrum, that's the thing.
No spectrum? Okay. So there's no difference between 250W pedal assist limited to 25kph, 250W pedal assist limited to 40kph, 400W pedal assist limted to 25kph, 400W pedal assist limited to 60kph, 250W with a throttle limited to 25kph, 500W with a throttle limited to 50kph etc. These are all the same and it's only when we get to the Surron when it goes from bicycle to electric motorbike?
Sounds exactly how it was regulated in Germany, except for the license I think. It's pretty much handled the same as a moped, which I think is totally fair.
Don't you need a licence for moped in Germany? In Finland you need one unless you're born before 1980 I think. Same with motorcycles.
Not if they're capped at 25 kilometers per hour.
Huh. We don't have those. Here moped is defined as having maximum of 50cc engine and speed limited to 45kph. You need a license for those which you can get when you're 15.
They're popular with younger people, some of which also illegally unlocked them of course.
According to the article, those limits are regulated on EU level. Which also makes perfect sense, since that allows for a single market of e-bikes.
Yes, they're now. Those laws existed for much longer within Germany already though, hence why I compared them.