This seems like a bad take. Do most people really only ride on the throttle?

I think people realise that highspeed is far more dangerous for everyone than throttle, and throttle have far more use case than higher speed, which i kinda agree.

For instance, i can kick-start my momentum easily if i forgot to switch it down to lower gear, or when i need to start moving uphill from a slope, or when i have a lot of grocery at the back and need to push it back to my garage, or when i have a flat and have to push the bike for a distance. I’m sure there’s more that i haven’t encounter.

Restricting either of these on the bikes themselves is foolish, and will only serve to hamper adoption of bikes by those who don’t know these things can be bypassed.

Just have road regs, like any other motorized vehicle.

All this nonsense is especially frustrating, since electric bikes/scooters make far more sense than electric cars, as most of car energy is for moving the vehicle, while bikes and scooters it moves the person.

I’d prefer throttle over max speed.

I don’t have any cycle lanes in my town, so the faster I can get myself and my child out of an intersection, the better. I’m usually pedaling around on the lowest power assist, so the throttle lets me kick it to max without hitting a button up and down 4x per intersection.

Alternatively, just connect the throttle to the pedals/padel assist, and I’d be happy (i.e. throttle behaves as usual, but only while pedal assist is already on).

Do most people really only ride on the throttle?

I can only offer a morsel of anecdata from around my area, but a rudimentary sample of the ebiking public while waiting at red lights in the last few weeks would suggest that yes, a good number of people riding bikes have the throttle pinned and are going at a good clip, which I would estimate to be 20 MPH (32 kph), the existing Class 2 limit.

Granted, I’m only really ever at red lights long enough to survey anything when I’m in the suburbs. And I suspect the thinking here is that 20 MPH is plenty fine if the alternative is walking or riding slower on sidewalk. At least around here, most probably know someone who’s eaten pavement on an e-scooter at 15 MPH, so 20 MPH is likely a reasonable pace for a lot of people.

How about a non-stupid firmware update that locks to 20 if a throttle is connected, and unlocks to 28 if there isn’t one?

Such a design could work, but probably can’t be done with a firmware update for existing bikes. A lot of throttles are just – and I’m simplifying for generality – a potentiometer feeding an analog signal to the motor controller. The latter might not be able to detect the absence of a throttle, but merely that if a throttle is present, it is not engaged. That’s not sufficient to meet the clarified laws for 2025, so perhaps the industry will rise to produce throttle-presence detecting ebikes going forward.

Personally, I removed the throttle from my rather-old Class 3 ebike long ago, because I just didn’t use it. When I’m going at the full 28 MPH (45 kph), I’ve got a better feel for the road conditions when I’m actively pedaling, and with the torque sensor backing me up. But I bike as my primary mode of transportation, despite other options available, so it’s also just more fun this way.

This is a dumb rule. You need throttle mostly for starts in a high gear. ie not having to pointlessly shift gears from your cruising speed. It is more dangerous to put instant full throttle on the slightest pedal stroke, as bike can easily take off from slightest twitch when you mean to stay stopped.

If there needs to be a rule like this, have throttle not work above 20mph.

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