As E-Bikes Speed Up, a Policy Dilemma Looms from buzai232's blog

As E-Bikes Speed Up, a Policy Dilemma Looms

Earlier this month Dutch e-bike maker VanMoof unveiled its powerful new V model, which comes with two motors, a 700-watt engine, and a top speed of 37 miles per hour. With an expected price of $3,598 in the United States, the V is scheduled to hit the streets at the end of 2022.To get more news about ebike for sale, you can visit magicyclebike.com official website.

For a bicycle, the V is fast — really fast. To offer a comparison, 37 mph exceeds the all-time record for average speed in a Tour de France time trial. Rather than call the V an e-bike, VanMoof describes it as a “hyperbike,” a term the company created. Cofounder Ties Carlier says that the V “will be the most efficient and comfortable way to get around cities like London, Tokyo and Los Angeles.”To get more news about e bike, you can visit magicyclebike.com official website.
VanMoof is not the only company pushing the envelope on a bike’s speed and power. A New Zealand company called Speedi offers a device that can supposedly hack an e-bike’s sensors to boost speed by 50%. Meanwhile, the Vintage Electric Roadster already goes 40 mph, and a vehicle called the Revolution X is advertised as reaching 60 mph. (Such bikes typically have a setting that can restrict speed.) These machines are blurring the already murky distinctions between electric bikes and faster, more powerful mopeds, motor scooters, and motorcycles. To get more news about electric bike, you can visit magicyclebike.com official website.

From a policymaking perspective, should a 37-mph e-bike still count as a bicycle, or should it be regulated like faster vehicles with a throttle? Motorcycles and mopeds are often subject to an array of laws and restrictions that e-bikes aren’t, such as license plate mandates, helmet requirements, and special driver’s licenses. Such distinctions break down for the new class of high-speed e-bikes. After all, any two-wheeled vehicles traveling at 40 mph likely create comparable risk to the rider as well as other street users.

Achieving the right policy balance is tricky. Lax rules for super-fast bikes could place cyclists and pedestrians in danger, but overly onerous ones could jeopardize the opportunity for two-wheeled vehicles to supplant the automobile, a transition that many environmental and urban advocates are eager to see.Ready or not, cities and states will need to decide how to navigate a strange new world of hyper-charged two-wheelers.

It’s easy to see how we arrived at this moment. The e-bike market is exploding, posting an annual growth rates of 240% in the U.S., according to the market research firm NPD Group, and driving rival manufacturers to search for an edge. “Bike companies want to innovate and break records,” says Noa Banayan, the director of federal affairs for PeopleforBikes, an industry group. “That’s something you’re seeing evolving with e-bikes right now.”

For VanMoof’s Carlier, designing the V for speed was a no-brainer. “We have 150,000 riders around the world,” he says, “and almost all of them want the option to go faster.”

Carlier says he doesn’t expect V riders to go flat-out on a downtown ride; automobiles, he notes, are almost always driven well below their top speeds (which, notably, are far above prevailing speed limits). “Twenty miles per hour is very suitable for the center city,” he says.“The V is a bike for going outside the city. We’re looking beyond the bike lane.” Carlier envisions cyclists using the V to commute from th e suburbs, mixing with cars and trucks on main roads as they approach the urban boundary — at which point V riders will slow before continuing their journey.

Carlier says that VanMoof is in discussions with Dutch cities about arranging a geofence that uses sensors to automatically slow speedy V riders who cross into a designated area. The use of such geofences is now common with shared scooters, though it is seldom seen on privately owned vehicles. But the idea seems to be catching on: BMW recently introduced a concept bike that also accommodates geofenced speeds.

Aware of the V’s power, Carlier believes that government oversight is necessary. “There should be a minimum age and driver’s license,” he says. But he demurs on other possible limitations, such as requiring insurance or limiting where a V could be ridden.

For now, though, the regulatory landscape for a 37-mph e-bike is muddled in the United States. In 2002, the federal Consumer Product Safety Commission established a general definition of e-bikes (under 750 watts of power and a top speed of 20 mph), but states typically determine whether such vehicles must be registered, while cities decide where they can be ridden. More than 30 states have now adopted a three-tiered classification system developed by the bike industry. The fastest Class 3 e-bikes are limited to 28 mph. (A few stragglers like Massachusetts still have yet to codify their e-bike rules, though a new bill may address that.) Congress used the three-class system in its current proposal for a federal e-bike tax credit, meaning that bikes like the VanMoof V that exceed 28 mph wouldn’t be eligible for it.

So where does all of this leave an electric bicycle that goes faster than a Class 3 e-bike? Basically, in limbo. “It’s an out-of-class vehicle,” says Banayan. “How a vehicle like that is regulated is up to the states, and there aren’t yet any clear trends on how they are addressing these products.”