I love them. They're regulated in Germany though. We differentiate between pedelecs, those that use your own power but support you with a motor. If they're capped at 25 km/h (reality is 27-28km/h), they're treated as bikes, no insurance, no plates and you can use bike lanes and such. They can go up to 45 km/h support where you need a plate and insurance, a driver's license and you have to use the road.

Then you have e-bikes that can drive alone without your input, amd they're treated as motorbikes. You have to insure them, wear a full face helmet and make a driver's license, depending on the top speed. You can't use bike lanes usually unless it has a road sign that gives an exception.

I think e-bikes are a response to a problem with bike infrastructure. The US has such a lack of bike infrastructure that bikes are forced to share the road with cars. Even in the best case scenario, you’re biking on a road with 25mph traffic when you can only hit about 15mph comfortably. E-bikes let people who are not athletes keep up with car traffic.

Build comfortable bike infrastructure and the fast e-bikes people ride will be less necessary.

I used to think they were pretty cool and I suppose any bike is better than any car. In addition to the safety concerns you mentioned, I just feel that outside of enthusiasts or those with mobility issues a regular bike is fine. Not everything needs a battery strapped to it.

As someone who owns one, I have a few thoughts

• I love mine. I use it everywhere. Mine “can” go to 30min but I keep it capped at the legal 20mph.

• Advertising: An annoyance I have with most companies that sell e-bikes that can go 20- 50mph, strongly advertise them as such and don’t really push people to keep them at 20mph. Then you have people regularly riding them and nodding them to go to the extreme and complain when the bikes break down.

• Food delivery people: While I understand they are trying to make a living, they are the most dangerous people I see on the road with these. THEY DO NOT STOP. And why should they? Their goal is to deliver as much as they can in an hr and no one will stop them, which leads me to the next point

• Cops: They will do nothing. I’ve lost count of the amount of times I’ve been sitting at a red light with my bike, while a delivery person zooms by on a red light and the cops just sit in their cars and go back to browsing their phones. These are the group of people that will likely ruin it for the rest of us.

• Motorcyclists: Because it’s becoming more common to see e-bikes or electric vespas at the point racing down bike paths at 50mph, I’ve started to see normal motorcycles jump into bike lanes to cut off car traffic.

Ebike + 2-kid trailer = my car replacement. Well, for while the kids are young enough to fit in the trailer.

But last use of the trailer was hauling a usual load of groceries. That is, 4-6 bags.

I bought an 45 km/h e-bike to commute to work and it’s amazing. My commute is faster than by car given the route I can take. However where I live (Switzerland) there are many safety restrictions. I must have passed a driving test (not necessarily for a car, but that counts too), I must wear a helmet, it must have a side mirror, I must have the lights on at all times (even in the day), strict limits on where I can ride, etc.

Generally I feel safe, and act safe. However there is a slightly negative connotation around e-bikes given that they can disturb pedestrians due to their speed, and car drivers sometimes get surprised by them (not really the bikers fault).

It feels like the impact of heavier-handed ebike would be a drop in the bucket compared to what we might accomplish with more heavy regulations on cars. I can't even find a number of pedestrians killed in ebike accidents, but it looks like 7,500 pedestrians were killed by cars last year. I see there were two pedestrians killed by ebikes in NYC last year, which I expect to be the lion's share of those deaths, at least in the US since that's the densest population of pedestrians in the country.

I don't want someone to be killed by a car nor an ebike, but if you ask me if we should focus on regulating the vehicle that's killing maybe a couple dozen people a year versus the one that's killing thousands, I'll lean toward the latter. Yes, cars are already more strictly regulated, but it's evidently not enough. Let's add more classes of licenses to drive large trucks and SUVs. Let's put people in jail when they hit pedestrians. Let's rebuild our transportation culture putting people first and cars second. Detroit is on the decline. Let the laws and the culture they paid to establish in their early days decline with them.

Seems like there should be a lot we can do to reduce pedestrian deaths before we devote resources to worrying about ebikes.

I drive an ICE motorcycle as my daily transport. So I am biased.

1. Bullshit batteries with pedals "e-bikes": Super dumb. Bad construction, cheap batteries, no license required. Riders generally have zero awareness and are happy to drive the wrong way, or cut off semis at a whim.

2. Bullshit battery powered scooters: Slightly less dumb. Construction is generally bad to middling. No license required. My biggest issue with these is based on experience in China. They are practically silent, the only noise you hear is the friction between the tires and the pavement, possibly the sound of the motor right before they are about to hit you. They are stupidly heavy.​ Combine silent, stupidly heavy, no license, and people driving them anywhere the fuck they want,​ and they are zero fun for everyone else (cars, motorcycles, pedestrians) on the road or sidewalk.

3. E-"motorcycles".​ Would be cool if the tech was actually there. As it is the range is generally too low, price too high, and they generally have super chintzy wheels/tires to save on weight. You're better off getting a 125 cc motorcycle to putter around on.

I would approve of e-bikes more if they all had strict licensing requirements, and the MSF certification course was required. The reason for this being...

People are kinda dumb as shit when it comes to 2 wheels, manual transmissions, acceleration/deceleration, front and rear wheel braking, and friction/traction. Most people don't really know physics to any real extent. Why does any of this matter? People drive cars and feel safe. Cars have 4 wheels and are more stable, you can kinda still drive like an idiot, crash, and not die. This does not cross over to 2 wheels. So you get people who don't have an understanding of manual transmissions, power curves, traction, gyroscopic forces, etc... Hand them what they see as a toy (the e-bike), and then they make REALLY dumb mistakes.

So, friction. Really damn important. Not understanding it on an e-bike is dangerous. No power curve = "instant" max torque (unless managed in the bike's firmware). Losing traction can happen not only from accelerating, people forget braking is just negative acceleration (or just don't know). Turning uses up traction. Turning + braking uses up even more, use too much of both and you crash.

All of these details seem to mostly be ignored by e-bike riders because ultimately e-bikes are still seen as "toys".

This is speaking as someone who owns an electric skateboard and uses it to commute.

They need to be regulated. I live on a college campus, one where companies have come and installed their own electric scooters to use for a fee. And I think it's a nearly universal experience for anyone who has been on the campus to see someone using it in an borderline suicidal manner. Going 10-15mph faster than the pedestrians on the trails, completely ignoring road laws, and leaving them everywhere (middle of sidewalks and middle of roads).

While the latter is probably a phenomena exclusive to rental vehicle companies, the former two are a product of the fact that there are absolutely no rules for these things and that they can get really fast. My board can get up to 30mph, but I know that it would be courting death to operate it at that speed without a full pad set, and would be totally reckless on any kind of well-traveled road. But people renting them don't know, and people who own them typically learn after making a mistake, to the detriment of their own or others. Without any training, I think that the speeds that personal electric vehicles are allowed to hit should be capped at a level where mistakes aren't truly fatal; particularly, I think that electric vehicles need to be regulated to be able to operated at a maximum of class 2 designation without a license, more with a license. Maybe even more so.

I can see the appeal to e-bikes, but at this point, they just don't fit my use cases. For relatively short distances (<5 miles) and/or casual purposes, I can ride my regular bike and e-bikes don't present much of an advantage. The time/energy saved doesn't outweigh the cumbersome nature of an e-bike and the need to put more energy into charging the battery and protecting it from theft.

For longer distances (10-30 miles) and/or more serious purposes (like commuting to a job), I think I'm better served by a moped/motorcycle. The average e-bikes I'm seeing are around $3,000, and I can get a great moped or a decent motorcycle for not much more than that. The motorcycle is more fun to ride, more versatile (I can go on the highway and drive 200 miles in one go, not to mention being able to fill up the gas tank wherever/whenever), and is arguably safer to ride. I know that's controversial, but at this point it seems like being a responsible motorcyclist on a regulated, standardized, and reliable motorcycle who wears safety gear has got to be safer than an e-biker on some unregulated, no-name brand E-bike straight from China, wearing minimal safety gear and dipping around bike lanes at 30mph in an unprecedented and unpredictable way. Sure that's a strawman, but if you compared average scenarios, I don't think it would be too far off.

I'm excited to buy a "real" electric motorcycle made by a reputable brand that can handle highway speeds and has convenient charging infrastructure built for it at some point in the future. But we're pretty far away from that now. And current e-bikes feel like a strange half-measure between bikes and e-motorcycles that doesn't really solve many people's needs. At least from my perspective, they are heavy, cumbersome, arguably difficult to charge for non-home owners, and they are about as easy to steal as a regular bike while also being much more expensive. They are well-suited for urban bikeshare programs though, and I have occasionally enjoyed using them in that context.

Problem #1 for me with E-Bikes is that it's a term that is encompassing vehicles with dramatically different capabilities.

I'm not sure your geographic location, but in the U.S. e-bikes (emphasis on bicycle) are actually regulated into three classes; outside of these are basically electric motorcycle/moped models, which technically probably require some sort of motorcycle license or training (although this varies by state). Whether people actually understand and follow these is another matter.

• Class 1 e-bikes are pedal-assisted (no thumb throttle) and are limited to 20 mph (you can go faster, but that's under your own power).
• Class 2 e-bikes are also limited to 20 mph but have a thumb throttle.
• Class 3 e-bikes are limited to 28 mph; some states allow thumb throttles, while others only allow pedal assist.

Some multi-use pathway systems allow Class 1 and/or 2 e-bikes, but largely exclude Class 3; states and cities vary on the allowed use in bike lanes. I've been involved in municipal bike/walk pathways (was volunteer chair of a city commission for 6 years), and we basically agreed upon Class 1 and 2, along with the small e-scooters (limited to 15 mph). Obvious e-moped and -motorcycle types are disallowed on such facilities.

I personally don't ride an e-bike (just a heavy steel-framed beast of a touring bicycle), but I generally support them, especially for older adult mobility and in cargo settings for carrying kids and the like. Most of these, though, are Class 1, which isn't all that much faster than a regular bike (I routinely go 16+ mph on a flat commuter trail without effort, and can hit 20+ with a bit of pushing).

There is a big e-vaporware project that I've been following for over a decade, hoping against hope that they will actually, someday, turn their fantasy into an actual commercial product.

If/When they (or someone else) actually do, I think this could quickly become a huge segment of personal transport. Sadly, these guys have been "2 years away from mass production" for the past 13 years.

https://www.litmotors.com/home

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lit_Motors

Does anyone see any show-stopper reason why this wouldn't be doable, and broadly popular once it was commercially available?

Edit to add: These are, effectively, electric motorcycles with a fully enclosed frame, with airbags surrounding the passengers for added safety, and powerful dual gyroscopes keeping them upright (no balancing required) even in a major collision, allowing for "car-like" steering. Transport one person + a couple bags of groceries comfortably, or 2 people with a bit of finesse (much like traditional motorcycles).

Where I live they are not a good option.

Not so much on the quality but due to legislation they have a speed limiter at 25km/h and that makes it incredibly annoying to use due to how it is implemented. At least on the handful of bikes i tested

I love the concept of an e-bike but don't need one for my commute so I've held off on purchasing, given the cost. I'm also hesitant because the tech feels like it is improving so quickly that the longer I wait the better.

I'd still love one for some weekend cruising around town given how many hills there are in my area.

My primary concern with e-bikes/scooters/skateboards is that on the conventional versions of these speed is generally earned, or there will be dire consequences. Most people aren't doing 20mph on their hybrid bicycle or beach cruiser unless they've been riding enough to develop the strength and endurance to do so, which will, generally, come with the coordination and practice to do so reasonably safely. When any unfit person can hop on a bicycle with a beginner's situational awareness and response capability, they become a hazard to themselves and their environment.

This is ignoring the bicycle culture war (fwiw, I'm strongly on the bicycle side), and the hazards of riding a bicycle in a city (which is largely on car operators, legislation, zoning, and urban planning).

I also think that, in general, they're a great idea. Anything that gets butts on bikes in a city is great, and will push the needle of progress, but e-bikes need to be tightly regulated. For a safe and skilled operator there are no downsides. However, in my state of California, we have a requirement that anything with a motor (throttled/pedal assist bikes, e-scooters, and e-skateboards) follows the laws we have governing bicycles in the street, with no exception for municipalities to allow bicycles on sidewalks as they see fit (California leaves bicycles on sidewalks up to the cities to determine). This presents an issue in environments that don't have safe bicycle infrastructure and suffer under the weight of the bicycle culture war already. In this context e-bikes don't present any new issues, but simply exacerbate existing issues with higher-speed incidents of car/bike/pedestrian aggression.

The last detail is the people on bikes in my area are not doing it because they're making a choice, they need a cheap way to get around, which, similarly to how drivers often break laws, they're doing the same. Putting a motor on this is just increasing the risk to all around. I can't say "just enforce it more," because of how that tends to go (ex: New York City police fining people for going around bike lane hazards), because the police, like their non-cop drivers, tend to not know the law for cars, and most likely don't understand it in a bicycle/motorized pedestrian context. Legal literacy with regards to how to operate on/around roads is in a horrible state nationwide, which is a major reason for there being a bicycle culture war, and I'd wager a ton of road rage incidents.

EDIT: It's sort of rambly, but to me this is generally about more than, if not anything other than, the motors on bicycles and more about how individuals and traffic systems interact with e-bikes and scooters.

I commute via bike, ~10km per day in a high density / high traffic urban setting, on a city that has no real infrastructure or culture for bicycles. I've considered e-bikes, but for now i have rejected them, under the following reasoning:

• If I want to exercise, any kind of e-bike would prevent me from doing so (or make my exercise worse).
• If i don't want to exercise, there is no point in getting an e-bike that requires even little pedalling effort.
• All e-bikes without pedals are actually e-motorbikes. If i wanted one of those, i'd not cycle, i'd have an ICE motorbike (and would possibly look to replace it with an electric one).
• E-motorbikes should never be grouped together with e-bikes. The power/speed difference is too great.

So, I have only thought of a few use cases where an e-bike fits well:

1. Good for physically weak people, who would still like to cycle (eg. elderly),
2. Good for people that would like something they can physically store within their flat (going up an elevator or a few stairs), and can't use a normal bike (eg. people with a very long commute).
3. Good to replace commuting via mass transport (ranges up to 30km or so i guess). This is the only large-scale use case i can think, but it necessitates a city with massive infrastructure for bicycles (not my city) to scale up. Might also work on a countryside setting, but then the limited range becomes an issue.

Concluding, despite living in the EU and having massive investments poured into them, i believe the e-bikes won't be that popular going forward (except maybe in cities that promote bicycles over cars).

On the other hand, i believe that the e-motorbikes can replace a large part of the ICE motorbikes used for commute (this is out of scope of the e-bike subject though)