Personally, if it’s capable of slow highway speeds (45 and up), has more than 30 miles of range, and full safety lighting, then it’s a low power motorcycle. Anything less is a bike.
Legally speaking though, it’s actually pretty diverse by area. For instance, California requires pedal assist integration, eg if it can accelerate with no pedal movement it’s a motorcycle, and then the bikes have 3 levels of classification (why though? Not sure), with max output regulated to 1600W (afaik since I don’t live there). In other places they’re more lax with regulation, just depends.
Yeah in Canada we have e-bike classes, the kind that require pedal pressure to engage motor are allowed in same places as bicycles ( like walking trails etc). When they have a throttle the class changes, because more can go wrong
Personally, if it’s capable of slow highway speeds (45 and up), has more than 30 miles of range, and full safety lighting, then it’s a low power motorcycle. Anything less is a bike.
Legally speaking though, it’s actually pretty diverse by area. For instance, California requires pedal assist integration, eg if it can accelerate with no pedal movement it’s a motorcycle, and then the bikes have 3 levels of classification (why though? Not sure), with max output regulated to 1600W (afaik since I don’t live there). In other places they’re more lax with regulation, just depends.
Yeah in Canada we have e-bike classes, the kind that require pedal pressure to engage motor are allowed in same places as bicycles ( like walking trails etc). When they have a throttle the class changes, because more can go wrong