“If you asked most owners of these e-bikes about which they’d give up if they had to, they’d probably tell you “take my 21-28 mph speed but leave me my throttle”.”
This seems like a bad take. Do most people really only ride on the throttle?
I’ll keep my higher speed and lose the throttle, thanks. 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?
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.
An instant full throttle of 750 watts is really not that hard of a push. It’s not gonna get away from you.
Commonly, the brake lever functions as a motor cutoff. So, sitting at a stop light, you can still move the pedals without activating the motor if you squeeze the brake a little.
on my ebike, I get an instant 50w from pedal movement. Takes 3 revolutions before I get full throttle. 50w is not too bad, but still jarring, and 750w would have caused big problems in some past cases.
Come to think of it, I do have my controller set to ramp up to full power over the course of like 1 second, instead of coming on instantly.