We use to have exactly what you want in the 1970s, and even a British Standard defining the permitted power of an EAPC.
But all it did was enforce completely useless assisted bikes with a true 200 watts limit, totally killing the market before it could get off the ground then.
So we scrapped that and cancelled that British Standard in favour of the present system which allows the designer to provide what is needed for the job in hand.
The problem with that old system and what you are asking for is that 200 watts is defined as what an average FIT person can output over two hours or so, and therefore enough for cycling. So even if someone needing assistance can output very little, 200 watts of assistance appears to be enough, so that is where the original law came from.
But of course 200 watts isn't anywhere near enough, we need to allow motors to reach 600 watts or more to be useful in all circumstances, even 800 watts for some purposes. Try to legislate to allow either of these and you wont have to wait long for the storm of anti-cycling protests about allowing three or four times a cyclist's average power. Such a Bill probably wouldn't survive a first reading in the House of Commons.
Hence the law we have, which discretely allows what we need while effectively disguising it with a publically acceptable number.
As it should be, since the job in hand is to provide assisted cycling, not make useless laws to suit courts and ill informed public opinion.
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i think still a lot of people don't understand how motors work. 200w would be enough power, but a motor's power varies between zero and 80% of its input power, depending mainly on its speed. If a motor could max out at 200w, it would slow down when it encountered a hill. As it gets slower and slower, the efficiency goes down, and the output power goes down in proportion, so when you need the power the most, you get the least. That's why it's almost impossible to make a regulation for the power.
Most of the above can be overcome with a crank-drive bike if you had low enough gearing, but a twist-and-go scooter doesn't have a crank.
Like you, I'm quite happy with the regulations as they are now for pedal assisted bikes, but I can see that it would do a lot of good to legalise low-power unassisted vehicles. You can see that they're already very popular in cities. Apart from a few press clickbait articles, there don't seem to be too many problems reported. If you can hire one and use it legally, you should be able to buy one and use it too. The main difference is that the present ones are tracked, and the temporary owner is recorded via the app - in theory. I'm going to bet that something like that is coming for us.
BTW, call me a conspiracy theorist, but I watch DJ Audits. He goes round filming industrial estates and has some very entertaining encounters. What I've noticed is the number of data centres there are around the country. Nearly every industrial estate he visits has one, and they have really massive security. They're all brand new too. There were hardly any 5 years ago by comparison. You can use your imagination to figure out what data will be taken, processed and kept. One of them might be where you are on your ebike and how fast you were going. Remember the billions spent on Track and Trace. That wasn't just for covid. In fact, it wasn't even ready for covid. Of course, they can spend the money on it for your health, which is a nice excuse for collecting data on you. How could they otherwise got the budget approved.
As I have a vivid imagination, I can see the possibility that in 10 years time ordinary pedal bicycles becoming illegal because they can't be tracked.
ebikes.ca
www.pedelecs.co.uk
