The San Francisco Bicycle Coalition weighed in with a pointed response, arguing that the state should be making it easier, not harder, to own and use e-bikes. Their senior organizer echoed the sentiment shared by many riders: the real confusion and danger comes from people not being able to tell the difference between a legal e-bike and an electric moped, not from the bikes themselves.
Brett Thurber, co-owner of a San Francisco e-bike shop, raised a practical industry concern about AB 1557. Restricting California’s speed limits below what manufacturers currently build for the U.S. market could push companies to skip California customers entirely, shrinking the supply available to local shops and consumers.
Part of the issue is that the category of “ebike” is quite large. It really needs to be split into multiple subcategories for regulation.
For bikes intended to mix with pedestrians, you definitely need to limit speed and weight. Europe’s 250W, 25kph rules seem reasonable for this.
The problem most places have is the grey area between ebike and moped, particularly for cargo bikes. They are fast/heavy enough to be a risk to pedestrians, but not enough to be classed as motorbikes. They need some restrictions/licencing to keep pedestrian areas safe, but not so much that they get lumped in with cars.
You mean like into 3 classes of e-bikes? Like California already does? With these rules specifically applying to some of these classes and not to others, as it says in the article?
Like what do you want more? These rules would make Class 1 exactly like in the EU pedelecs (with more wattage).