German Industry Calls for Measures Against

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LockH

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German Industry Calls for Measures Against E-Bike Tuning:
http://www.bike-eu.com/laws-regulat...s-for-measures-against-e-bike-tuning-10129213

Starts:
BAD SODEN, Germany – In Germany a joint industry platform has issued warnings on the tuning and manipulation of e-bikes and calls for measures. Next to tuning also the continued selling of non-type-approved speed e-bike models is taking place and is jeopardizing the success of electric bicycles, e-MTBs and speed e-bikes.
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[Sigh]

... and explains:
Yesterday, the German AG Fahrradwirtschaft (AGF) issued the warning on tuning and manipulation of e-bikes. AGF is a platform consisting of various associations and organizations of the bicycle industry who exchange information on current topics at regular meetings. The objectives of the AGF are the processing of common, overarching topics in order to find strategies and solutions.

Members of the AGF are: the German industry association ZIV; the association for retailers of two-wheelers VDZ; the bicycle service association VSF; dealer cooperative BICO and the federal association of mechanics for two-wheelers BIV.
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[Grumble Grumble] Personally? Interested NOT on having any power "restrictions" but only on having some SPEED restriction.
 
Sooner or later...

Big Brother is watching us.
Big Brother knows what is good for you.
Big Brother wants your good,
and he will have it
 
It is fair that peds and pedal cyclists should be able to use non-motor rights of way without being subjected to motor traffic and motorist attitudes.

License an e-bike as a motorcycle, and you can have as much power and speed capability as you please. It's not some kind of mystery or grievous restriction; it's just that many e-bikers don't think they should have to abide by the rules.
 
Chalo said:
.... just that many e-bikers don't think they should have to abide by the rules.
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Especially your rules.

I inconvenience no one. I put no one at greater risk. I am a nuisance to no one. I live and ride by my own common sense rules, and harm no one else in any way shape or form, therefore I don't need anyone making what they believe are better rules that negatively impact my mode of travel...especially militant pedalists and their ridiculous corporate sponsors and larcenous priced equipment suppliers. Go suck the fun out of someone else.
 
Well, if you were doing your thing in the First World, you'd have to licence your motorcycle and keep it off the sidewalks and bike paths. Because that's the deal. And it's a better deal than coping with Ticos and their murder-suicide style driving.

I understand Somalia is even looser than CR. Maybe you can run your e-bike on a radioisotope thermal generator there, and still not have to license it.
 
Ordnung muss sein :wink: Up here north atmosphere is more relaxed. Our police says it"s not interested as long as you don"t cause danger to pedesterians. They are not interested about numbers, they view your whole riding as a package. If you behave, you are all right. What is right and safe behaviour on each situation, varies greatly. Out on the open road no one gives a damn how fast you are going, you are anyways slower than cars. Here mopeds are allowed on many MUT"s. They whizz by like rockets even when i"m all systems go. Can"t compete with some 5hp moped, just their acceleration is crazy.
 
I know its hard to understand the big deal now but over time and already in dense population areas like New York you see what happens.

As battery power keeps increasing and larger pools of people jump on 2kw ebikes and go flying through parks full of kids etc problems will come up, sure your not that type of idiot but those idiots will come sooner or later and you won't be able to stop them. There will be some who will even be such idiots they will kill people on their bikes and never feel guilt and somehow even feel they are doing the world a favor riding the way they do.

I think its a bit like guns and licenses I remember my brother buying a gun out of the trading post in aus back in the day no license no worries.. but as more people in aus got easy access to guns along comes Martin Bryant etc.
 
Laws are usually were made for the 5% idiots not for 95% that uses their common sense.

If the problems rise the laws will be changed, of course.

I ride with 10kw here in good old german angst country and i can tell you, we have other problems than a few ebikes. :wink:

Police flies by all the time and they never stopped me.
Of course i only go fast when im alone.
If there are other peoples in sight i slow down.
If there are children or woman with children i go 6kmh max till i passed them.

And even when they try to get me........i know my city and my ride goes from 20-80kmh in a few seconds.
But it wasnt necessary till now.
 
The industry is calling for measures against....

Industries should never be allowed to influence the law. Lobbies are the dark side of democracy, wether they are funded by the industry or associations, their goal is to force a majority to abide by the rules of a minority.
 
This is a classic case of government force being used by entrenched markets to protect them from competition and upstarts. The makers of the electric bikes don't want anyone making better bikes than they do (especially out of their own bikes). The scooter and motorcycle companies don't want competition from good electric bikes. This whole story is just about using government force to prevent competition. The lack of competition in turn results in higher prices and lower quality.

I don't know why the leftist big-government supporters on this forum never show up here to apologize for these reports of governments abusing the people's freedoms? Lack of freedom and the creation of partial monopolies are the inevitable result of big government/socialism.
 
Of course it"s true that more common e-bikes become, more these kind of measure-calls will arise. Technically their war is pretty hopeless, it will always be pretty easy to make your e-bike go fast, coz it"s not exactly Apollo 13. It is impossible to stop tweaking, because it will always be pretty easy. Most ice mopeds here are illegally tuned, they made investigation recently and results were something like 85% were tweaked. Law against tuning your ice moped illegally is very soft. Official limit is 45 km/h, but you can go 65 km/h before they will fine you at all. If they really bother and donuts were bad, they give you a "warning". According to our law it"s still a moped if it does not exceed 65 km/h. 20 km/h overspeed is basically allowed in reality. Over 65 km/h and it"s a motorcycle and they fine you for not having motorcycle insurance, of lack of driver"s licence too if you don"t have it. Same kind of 20 km/h overlap would be a good idea for e-bikes internationally. On the other hand it will look just silly if they start heavily control of exceeding 25 km/h. Fining illegally fast e-bikes harder than illegally fast mopeds just would not make any sense.
 
^^ Watt he said. :) Bottom line? Buncha "politicians" preying on FEAR and IGNORANCE. Uses pubic space? Better tax that! Meanwhile, the 20th-century horseless carriage ("car") industry injures and kills millions of animals (some human) every day. The lack of exercise just one example. "Reasons why the ebike is a world beater thread":
https://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=58884
 
This is an eye opening discussion, I had never really known that there was something about electric bicycles that made them and their builders/riders exempt from the rules and regulations that apply to the rest of the population! I mean I had simply not realized that electrifying my bike made me so morally superior as to be able to pick and choose which laws and regulations that apply to me..... This is very liberating. Are there any other special privileges being electric offers that I'm still not aware of?
 
Yep
Obviously, you have the privilege of posting your opinion in a manner that is treating like sh*t, those who don't agree with you. I suppose that I have the same privilege, but I just restrain myself, like most of us... Most of the time. :wink:
 
"I had never really known that there was something about electric bicycles that made them and their builders/riders exempt from the rules and regulations..."

Hehe... Quote American Ben Franklin "Most folks die at 25 years old but aren't buried `til 75 y.o."... (They go "brain dead".) Despite the *obvious* (millions of animals - some human - injured and killed EVery day) the use of the 20th-century horseless carriage ("car") seen as "normal". This in an increasingly "urban" society aka "traffic congested".


MY "2Cents"? Strip away the seat belts and "air bags" and "crush zones". Make travel by machine MORE "difficult". Such that as operators ("riders", "cyclists") we are MORE "endangered" such that we "drive safer" to "Look out for Number One" (ourselves) such that ALL OTHERS are "SAFER". ;)

"Rules and Regulations" are suspect and ignore changes in technology.
 
WoodlandHills said:
I mean I had simply not realized that electrifying my bike made me so morally superior as to be able to pick and choose which laws and regulations that apply to me.....
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Obviously YOU are not paying close attention to this community. Which might appropriately change it's name to 'Endless Superiority.' As demonstrated in the previous response to you.

WoodlandHills said:
This is very liberating. Are there any other special privileges being electric offers that I'm still not aware of?
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Those privileges are reserved for us superior enough to figure them out for ourselves. The Hoi Polloi will just have to do without.
 
If humans are to continue inhabiting this space ship for another generation, the multi-ton steel boxes that travel with mechanically unrestricted speeds spraying toxic compounds into the life support system will be 'illegal' as a crime against the survival of all life on earth. Ebikes of any capabilities of speed and acceleration will be a welcome alternative to giant steel cages for high speed transport in a culture that survives into seeing today's children become old.
 
It's not just the toxins they spew and wars fought over their fuel source. It's the incredible wastefulness of the worlds resources to make 2-3 tone steel and plastic cages to transport generally just one human around that really gets me.

FWIW, when the time comes I'll have no problem paying my proportionate share of road use fees (registration, etc) and equipping my bikes with lighting, turn signals, etc. that make operation safer for all.
 
Right. Because of the spillage of resources, the danger that they are to others, and the destruction of the environment that personal car users are responsible for...

In all logic, it is the cars that should be restricted to 25 Mph
 
MadRhino said:
Right. Because of the spillage of resources, the danger that they are to others, and the destruction of the environment that personal car users are responsible for...

In all logic, it is the cars that should be restricted to 25 Mph
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From a kinetic energy perspective, our ebikes well above highway speeds are carrying less potentially destructive energy, and the rider has significantly more at stake with respect to staying focused.
 
Seems really stupid to me that ebikes are "dangerous" to pedestrians, but, cars that are constantly made to go faster and used by most people that maim and kill totally innocent families, etc. are totally allowed.

The rules down here are very lax and people in the USA, Canada, etc., just don't get how nice it is here to be able to have common sense prevail over stupidity and greed of lawmakers and big corps.
 
Did you guys read the article? All I got out of it is the "Industry" says that tuning is very bad, yes, very very naughty. And that they will continue to tell people that they think it is naughty. And continue to make their systems harder to tune, which is a joke, since almost all of their systems have been able to be tuned since day one and nothing has changed. It's all symbolic.
 
German manufacturers have a strong reputation, of making things hard and expansive to repair. Yet they still have a reputation of performance. If they start to promote low power, I am afraid that they might lose their only sales argument. :roll:
 
It's (mostly) about insurnace.

In Germany it is obligatory that you have insurance if you drive a motor vehicle in public traffic.

So everyone that gets hit by someone else will at least get the money, which sometimes can reach up into millions if your are unable to continue your high paid job, etc...

On the contrary it is a "Straftat" if you don't have insurance riding a motor vehicle in public traffic (pedelecs at 25km/h and 250W are an exception because they are legaly the same as bicycles).

So if you are riding an uninsured motorcycle it's a Straftat (= significant panalty, crossing red traffic lights is just an "Ordnungswidrigkeit" for comparison) and if you get hit by someone not having insurance and not having the money to pay out of his own pockets you have a problem.

On the other hand pedelecs are legaly similar to bicycles which has many advantages and you can buy speed pedelecs (45km/h) and of course you can buy electric motorcycles, too. You need insurance for those but this is for some good reason obviously.

Other countries may be more relaxed about "insurances". On the other hand, if you want to ride 250km/h in public traffic you can do so legaly over here. But only with insurance and a vehicle regularly controlled by TÜV & Co.
 
Izits said:
The scooter and motorcycle companies don't want competition from good electric bikes...
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Sales of scooters and motorcycles are way below sales of electric bikes in Germany. There is no "lobby" about scooters in Germany, because they are mostly non existent over here except for teenagers. In a climate where there is only about 2-3 months of summer per year this is not so unexpected.

In 2016 174,000 motorcycles (50ccm and larger) have been registerd in Germany.

http://www.motorradonline.de/vermischtes/motorrad-neuzulassungen-dezember-2016.815180.html

In 2016 605,000 pedelecs have been sold in Germany (city-/urban: 45%, "trekking" (hybrid): 35,5%, MTB: 15%, cargo: 2,5%, speed pedelecs: 1%)

http://www.e-bikeinfo.de/e-bike-news/kunden-kaufen-mehr-e-bikes-industrieverband-mit-neuen-zahlen

As you can see 99% buy 25km/h pedelecs and only 1% buy 45km/h speed pedelecs in Germany.
 
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