How is this not a scooter?
750W nominal power, and 15mph speed limit with pedelec and throttle makes it legally a class 2 ebike in the US.
I am having errors on lemmy and can’t see comments on this post, so I answer a bit blindly, sorry.
While I agree it’s legally an e-bike, I doubt it is functional as a bike. Can you actually reasonably move it without the motor?
If I had to share a bike lane with such a beast, I would feel uncomfortable. The idea (for me) of having no license driving of bikes is that a bike cannot do much damage. While this chunky thing definitely can do damage, to itself, its surroundings and fellow bike lane users. If you couple that with being driven by someone that might have no clue of safe road behavior, it makes me uncomfortable and I’d like a different classification for it. For example, as a driver license requesting scooter.
At least where I live a few people have larger cargo bikes like that without any ebike/motor setup in them, and pedal around just fine.
E-Bikes do have a legal limit of 100lbs, so that helps keep things safer, plus the very low speed limit of 20mph in most places.
My biggest problem with these type of e-bikes… There are too many clueless operators using these class 2 “bikes” and their class 3 2-wheel brethren on shared use walking/biking trails. 15-20 mph feels ok to me for bike lanes, but a fuzzy understanding of laws and safety rules plus a lack of enforcement ends up with people using these how and where they shouldn’t.
I’m not sure it being an ebike makes much difference, 20mph is very easy to hit on a slight hill on a normal bicycle. I mean I think I’ve hit 60-70 before on downhills on the road on a normal bicycle.
Like you said I think the issue is more lack of enforcement when someone does ride like an idiot.
What would make it a scooter?
>20mph or >750W or no pedals.
Looking at the specs: 20mph is class 2 ebike (28 mph is class 3) but this only has 15mph as max (I wouldn’t want to ride a trike fast anyways), it’s 750W nominal, and this thing has pedals as far as I can tell.
There are pedals, the 960 is peak - the actual rating is 750 and max speed is 15mph. I wouldn’t want to even try riding a delta trike more than 15 mph eitherTBF, that would be a good recipe for crashing.
This is safely in class 2 ebike territory all day long.
