And to put the power value of 800 Watt in relation: An average human is unlikely to go with more than 150 Watt over a sustained period. If you put this into this web computer:
http://kreuzotter.de/deutsch/speed.htm
http://kreuzotter.de/english/espeed.htm
you get a speed of 27 km/h for a road bike. If you put 800 Watt in for such a bike, you get a speed of 49 km/h (which in Germany is the general inside-village speed limit which is anachronistically high, and is slowly being replaced by 30 km/h where you have bicycles, pedestrisns, or schools).
That also means that an e-bike with 800 Watt power is actually a light motorcycle, with all the associated risks.
While I don’t think high-wattage e-bike motors are necessarily defensible, where you get mileage out of a higher wattage motor on an e-bike is when going uphill. These motors are already legally required to stop outputting at 25 km/h, and going 25 km/h uphill requires quite a lot of energy to do.
Then again, if a car with 200’000 Watts of power rolls through the same 30 km/h zone no one cares. So why should we care about bicycles?
Because we don’t fall for whataboutism?
It’s no question that car speeds in cities are going down - and need to go down for safety. And that’s no reason at all to make e-bikes significantly faster and make things less safe.
And by the way: Further reducing the speed limits for cars, and making more space for normal bikes, including dedicated bike roads, would achieve exactly what most people which argue for higher e-bike speed limits presumably want: You get much faster to your destination. Again, the European bicycle capitals like Copenhagen, Amsterdam and Paris show how it is done.
Wrong. More watts doesn’t mean faster. Bosch eBikes go up to 750W but are locked at 25km/h. The power is used for uphill climbing ability and responsiveness to leg torque input.
His point also stands. My car has 180.000 Watts and can easily go over 250km/h. Why isn’t it banned?Because you need a driver’s licence for that car, but not an E-Bike. And you can’t use that car on segregated green lanes in cities amidst other cyclists and pedestrians.
Also, they aren’t plated, and so can’t be ticketed by speed cameras like a car can.
Incorrect. A licence, registration, and insurance is required for electrically assisted bicycles capable of exceeding 25 km/h.
And such an s-pedelec, by law, is no bicicle and thus, generally not allowed on dedicated bike lanes. So what’s your point?
(Additionally, by e-bike they probably mean a 25 km/h limited pedelec, which is called E-Bike in German law.)
I was responding to the requirement of a licence for a car, if you read the comment chain
For other motor vehicles, license and insurance is required if they exceed 6km/h.
Exactly my point. The power of the vehicle is not relevant because the speed limit always applies.
I’d rather have a 1kW bicycle at 30 km/h than a 200kW car at the same speed.
Are you trolling?
European attitudes towards vehicle speed stun me. 30mph is fast?! Guess the difference is that American streets are built for cars; straighter, wider and wider open on the sides. Even if you meander off a residential street, all you’re going to hit is a mailbox. That open space also gives pedestrians and bikers ample room to get out of Dodge.
LOL, 800 Watt power would be equivalent to a 49cc moped around here. Americans would laugh if anyone called that a “light motorcycle”.
Highway speeds in Europe are 80mph, 45-55-70mph for normal roads and 30mph for town centers.
Of course not everybody keeps the speed limit, which may be variably enforced.
30mph is FAST for a bike, especially when you consider that they often travel through pedestrian areas.
Yeah I am, too, always astounded about posts like https://discuss.tchncs.de/post/22333342 or https://old.reddit.com/r/fuckcars/top/?sort=top&t=month .
From the interview:
The whole industry is worried, but it’s not about one company. With motors like these, we are moving further and further away from bicycles, and as an industry, we risk e-bikes being regulated by the EU. So far, e-bikes have been treated the same as bicycles in the EU. And we as the ZIV want to protect this status. To achieve this, we need to clarify the gray areas in regulation that define what is and what is not a bicycle. And two values are important here: performance and the ratio between rider power and motor power.
In this respect, DJI achieves values with the Avinox motor with 1000 watts and 800 percent muscle gain that did not exist before.
As I said, it’s not just about one specific brand. It’s about everyone pushing the performance values upwards. And the EU could look at this and ask: What are you actually doing here with your Newton meter power assistance factor race? Unlike the e-bike, the S-pedelec with a cut-off speed of 45 km/h is considered a moped in the L1 class and is subject to type approval. The type approval defines the assistance factor 4 for the S-pedelec.
And now the e-bike manufacturers are launching e-bikes that do not require type approval with a factor of 8 on the market.
Note that there is some confusing terminology: “eBike” as a common (but wrong) term means a bicycle with assistance electric power which is limited to 25 km/h in speed. The proper term for this is “Pedelec”. In difference to this, “S-Pedelec” means a light motorcycle which in Germany can go with up to 45 km/h, needs insurance, license plate, strict technical certification, helmet - and cannot, of course, use bicycle paths and cycle lanes.
> and cannot, of course, use bicycle paths and cycle lanes.In town, but outside it’s allowed unless is explicitly forbidden.In Germany, that’s not the case. What’s frequently allowed outside villages (but need explicit permission!) are mofas which are gas-powered vehicles which have a max speed of 25 km/h. The Netherlands are more permissive here but they do have far, far better cycleways.
Sorry, I’ve misunderstood.
Yet, there may be bike lanes, especially fast tracks, where S-pedelecs are explicitly allowed.
https://wattmoves.de/s-pedelecs-endlich-auf-radwegen-hier-ist-es-erlaubt/213234/
AfaIk, Mofas don’t need explicit permission on bike lanes out of town (§ 2 Abs. 4 StVO), but are explicitly prohibited sometimes *“keine Mofas”.
In town, the use of bike lanes with Mofas or pedelecs “E-Bikes” may be permitted if explicitly stated with an extra sign.
Which is actually a really crap regulation as each city has to check all of their bicycle paths and allow S-Pedelecs. Which means that there are many cities which are simply not doing that.
Many/most urban city paths in Germany are already too crowded for S-Pedelecs which go at 45 km/h.
For example, you would need to be able to safely overtake a slower bicycle which on most German bike lanes is not safely possible. And of course, it is a different thing for Netherlands bike infrastructure - but you also have much denser bike traffic there.
The problem here is, that at least in Germany S-Pedelecs are not allowed on bicycle paths at all. Which makes city driving a nightmare and is also preventing S-Pedelecs on many other paths. Around here there are many paths through nature reserves and woodland, where it totally makes sense that motorcycles are banned, but since S-Pedelecs fall into that category, you are screwed.
A regulation like “feel free to drive there, but do not even think about going faster than 25km/h” could work.
The regulation is more ar less only intended for high speed tracks ("Radschnellwege") where it is sometimes suitable to allow 45 km/h fast bikes or bike streets (“Fahrradstraßen”) where the s-pelelecs then would have to obey to the 30 km/h limit, not for each and every small narrow bike lane.
I don’t understand how anyone in their clear mind could think that treating electric mopeds like bicycles was a good idea in the first place.
as an american, this doesn’t directly affect me, but I am concerned that by the time I can afford to buy a good high power ebike, they might not exist anymore. I’d like it to not take all day just to cross town.
I agree with the idea that a better solution is to just apply a speed limit to bike lanes.
What’s fascinating for me is that Copenhagen is arguably the most bike-friendly city in Europe, and probably in the world - and very few people use e-bikes there! Why is this? Can somebody who lives there explain why?
Copenhagener here. People do use eBikes in Copenhagen, but I guess it depends on what you consider “very few”. My guesstimate would be that around one in five bikes is electric. As to why not more bikes are electric, Copenhagen - and Denmark in general - is very flat, so eBikes are more so used for:
- long distances (say, people who live ~20 km from work but still want to bike there)
- cargo/passenger bikes
- letting people bike who otherwise wouldn’t physically be able to
I live in Copenhagen. We have plenty. They’re relatively expensive though, so obviously most bikes are not (yet) ebikes. We are also experiencing a bike theft epidemic, which discourages people from buying expensive bikes. Another factor is the country is flat as a pancake and the weather is rarely hot. It’s much easier to get to work without working up a sweat on a regular bike. In fact, people often relish the ability to get some exercise in the morning and evening. Lastly, Copenhagen isn’t very big. We don’t have the same crazy distances seen in American cities.
Amsterdam would like a word.
In many surveys on bike usage and bike friendlyness, Amsterdam is a strong second after Copenhagen.
LIES! They just don’t want us to have electric motorcycles.
There’s a whole class of electric vehicles being held back by regulation. We can slap electro motors on wheels and bicycles are not the only vehicles you can build with that tech. Many EU countries are e.g. banning throttles on eBikes, but why are we forcing all those delivery drivers to pedal the whole day? Just give them a gas throttle. For many eBikes uses it really doesn’t make sense to include the whole bicycle complexity of gears, chains, shifting and so on. Just give them a motor and a throttle.
Killing the eBike with additional rules, insurance, mandatory inspections and so on would be absolutely idiotic and a good business model for insurances, car companies and so on, so I’m really afraid that this could happen
There’s a whole class of electric vehicles being held back by regulation.
Do you know that there is a reason for the regulations on light motorcycles, mopeds, mofas, Vespas, scooters and however you name them? It’s the number of fatal traffic accidents. And yes, there are probably over two dozens of these motorized vehicle classes which originally started with the idea of an “bicycle with a bit of motor” such as mopeds and mofas.
We want to reduce traffic and oil consumption and can’t figure why people buy larger vehicles in North America?
number of fatal traffic accidents
Yeah, the issue isn’t the light motorcycles/mopeds/etc…
So dude is right, a whole class of vehicle is being being held back by regulation, and the premise/reason is ridiculous for a society that would like to see less cars on the road.
I love that viewpoint of American tech bros that “regulation baaad!”. Are you aware that the living standard in the EU is in many measures much better than in the US? To start with, everyone has health insurance here while US has some Third-World reality…
Yeah, the issue isn’t the light motorcycles/mopeds/etc.
A thing which has a motor and where the human delivers less than 30% of the power at max speed is a light motorcycle. The reason for that is with more power you need a heavier battery and a much heavier frame with better brakes. You need a solid helmet which again makes it impractical to pedal at power because it becomes hot. At 40 km/h, it becomes to chill in the winter and at 45 km/h or so, you really need protective clothing because otherwise in a fall, the asfalt will strip your skin off. At that point it is very clearly becoming a motorcycle. You have lost thr technical sweet spot of a bicycle at that point. There have been many attempts to blur that line (guess what the name “Mofa” comes from or “Moped” or why these things have pedals which nobody uses).
And we have motor-powered bikes since a long time - over 75 years -, and regulations have evolved out of need. Traditinally, the motor was a combustion engine - but that’s the only difference and it is totally irrelevant for traffic safety.
and regulations have evolved out of need
That’s not totally correct. Here in Germany we have so called “Mofas” which translates to “motorized bicycle”. Those are different from eBikes and heavily regulated. There are age limits, drivers licence, insurance requirements, regulations where you are allowed to drive and so on. And yes, they are also restricted to 25km/h. Why are there this heavy regulations which are not in place for our pedelecs? The reason is plain racism in combination with “old people hate young people”. Those Mofas were popular with young migrant workers back in the 50s and 60s. And therefore they were regulated as fuck. You will see stuff like this with modern eScooters where the whole class will be restricted because they are popular with younger people.
What I wanted to say was exactly this: There is a rule in place that basically created artificial differences between the same thing. A 25km/h vehicle with a motor and pedals is heavily restricted, another one is totally free. Which makes no sense.
Those Mofas were popular with young migrant workers back in the 50s and 60s. And therefore they were regulated as fuck.
I don’t believe that. I was going to secondary school in Germany in the late seventies / early eighties and they were very popular with white middle class teenagers and apprentices younger than 18 years old. And they were regulated because of tons of serious accidents. Migrant workers would not earn very well and they would use a bike. Young students or workers would much more likely light motorcycles - in the seventies, the motorcycle industry worked very hard to both make them more affordable, and to work around regulations for motor bikes which had much higher safety requirements.
In addition, in 1965 mofas where exempted from requiring a drivers licence. Before, as of 1960, a mofa was considedered a moped and did require a proper class 5 (today: class AM) drivers license.
I really can’t see this in the traffic accident statistics. Yes, there are a lot of motorcycle accidents, but if you look deeper into them, those are in most cases “real” motorcycles and not those slower variants. And if you take a look at those eScooters, most accidents here are people driving those rental scooters while drunk. That’s a problem, but that’s also a problem you won’t solve by regulating the dude going to the train station in the morning.
It is very clear from statistics of traffic accidents between cars and pedestrians that risk of lethal injuries rises sharply with speed, even at speeds of 30 km/h. It does not make a difference whether a car crashes with 30 km\h into you, or you crash with 30 km/h into a car.
It is also very clear that riding light motorcycles is far more risky than riding a bike.
Actually it does make a difference, as cynetic energy is proportionnal to mass, so 30kmh car is much more dangerous than a 30kmh bike. Though it does not invalidate your point
No, that’s not the case. What’s relevant, especially with a difference of mass so large, is the relative speed of the two objects, which is 30 km/h.
@Alerian@sh.itjust.works
Suppose the impact coefficient k is similar, it does make a difference whether a bike crashes into a standing car (case 1) or a car crashes into a standing biker (case 2).
The thing is: You are using velocities v1, v2 which are relative to Earth. But none of the two vehicles collide with Earth - they collide with each other, thus the thing that matters is their relative speed, thus the difference of their velocities relative to Earth.
(That’s also why the speed at which both Earth, the car, and the motorized bike move around the sun does not matter - relative speed is all what matters).
The other thing is that a human colliding with an object of several tons weight with a speed of, say, 36 km/h is not “elastic”. 36 km/h is 10 meter per second, which is equal to about one second of free fall (accelerating with a= 9.81 meter per square second to the ground), which is equivalent to a fall height of h = a/2 * s ^2 or 5 meters.
Somebody falling from 5 meters hight on hard concrete ground will not bounce up but will likely have some broken bones, or a broken skull. What happens is that all parts of thier body is decelerated to a speed of zero within a distance of one or two centimeters, which involves massive forces that easily break bones.
And a speed of 14 m/s, or 54 km/h corresponds to a fall of ten meters depth - almost certainly lethal if hitting a two-ton concrete block.
Sorry I don’t have much time today to get into it. Seems to me you can’t solve for case 2 here since in this case m2 and m1 are switched. But it does not matter, I am not trying to solve for speed before and after.
The force of the impact does not depend on the mass, I agree, but the energy to dissipate (in the cyclist body) is much higher. I’m just saying that inertia plays a role as it contribute to the energy necessary to stop either vehicule. I am happy to be proven wrong, I just don’t think this is the right equation to do so.
