Saw this illegal combo on Ebay.

[Nealh]

Perusing Ebay as one does sometimes and came across this illegal set up at nerly 2.5k.
Plod won't take long to pull this one up if seen.
A cheap no name branded £300/£400 bike and a dinner plate powering the trike trailer as a push motor.

Electric Cargo Trailer and Bike. Up to 350kg Cargo! Custom made. High quality. | eBay

 

[Stanebike]

Quote from ad: ‘It is under 1m wide and conforms to UK electric cargo trailer regulation.’

Are there any UK electric cargo trailer regulations with respect to towing a trailer with a bicycle? Couldn’t find any with a quick Web search. Is it a real relevant regulation or a fairytale regulation?

 

[peter.c]

What fun to stop 350+ kg with cable discs with the cable not even in correctly
Twin motors and extended length - width bet this project did not pass Go one for health and safety

 

[Nealh]

A fairy tale regulation to suit the sellers sales pitch, it is the bike that has to be powered and not the vehicle being towed. This one is clearly a twist and go affair.
I wouldn't want to be pulling 350kg on that setup or any bicycle and expect to stop very well even with cable discs on the trailer contraption.

 

[Nealh]

The 1m trailer width being quoted is out of context and relates to motorcycles towing a trailer, uk wise I don't think there are any reg's concerning bicycles and trailers except for the obvious of lights /reflectors etc as with any bike.

 

[Fordulike]

That's a friggin monstrosity

 

[Bonzo Banana]

If only the cargo part has the motor why install the controller and battery on the bike itself. I would of thought you would want to keep all the main ebike components on the trailer and just run a control panel on the bike.

I notice the bike itself is a flying pigeon mountain bike. You don't see many of those over here, its a state owned bike brand that manufactured millions of bikes that got the Chinese cycling. A lot of history in that brand.

The motor is a curiousity, is it geared or direct drive, does it have regen. I'm guessing it is some sort of high torque motor and the 24" wheels or less will help with torque but if direct drive its not going to be that high torque with 500W. The whole benefit of direct drive is its extreme reliability and simplicity plus regen but they are not typically high torque motors. When you run them at 1000W (500W with 1000W peak) it is like 45Nm torque but if you run them at 250W restricted which peaks at around 400W they are at 25-30Nm.

If it really is capable of 350Kg it has to be geared surely. I've seen a geared hub motor on aliexpress with 20" wheels stated as high as 95Nm so it is possible and that hub motor looks a bit bigger.

Whatever its a monstrosity of a product that looks very unsafe. I would not like to be going down a steep decline with close to 1/2 ton behind me attached by a single steel strut.

I think you would be better off getting an overbuilt steel frame mountain bike, gearing it as low as possible, fitting an ebike kit, fitting front and back oversized racks and just having a standard trailer. Yes you couldn't move a single large item but could make it much safer and easier to ride and carry a lot of stuff. 350kg is just too much to try to adapt something to work it needs a proper design not that half-baked solution.

 

[AndyBike]

If there was a couple of beer kegs on that trailer and not the box. Would everyone still be upset about the legality of it ?.

 

[Nealh]

No one is upset by it and it matters not what the cargo being carried is.
It is simple motoring law that a towed trailer must not be powered.

 

[Bonzo Banana]

No one is upset by it and it matters not what the cargo being carried is.
It is simple motoring law that a towed trailer must not be powered.

Motoring law?

Cycling laws regarding ebikes just seems to be almost anything goes. Still amazes me that Bosch can get away with motors peaking close to 800W with a so called 250W rating. I'm sure it would take only minutes for a electrical engineer to show such ebikes aren't legal and should be taken off the road but they are still being ridden and openly sold and no one cares it seems. Maybe one day ebike legislation will have a more logical set of rules that are easy for the police to enforce but we are years away from that. As awful as that thing is I reckon there is a good chance you could ride that monstrosity around even at 500W and the police won't be interested. Lets face it no question that thing is going to be sub 15.5mph assisted. I assume without any ebike components its completely legal to ride so you have to work out if the ebike parts are legal in the way they are fitted can your average policeman work that out and know for sure.

I mean according to this government site;

Electric bikes: licensing, tax and insurance

Electric bikes meeting the EAPC regulations can be ridden on the road without being taxed, licensed or insured

www.gov.uk

What counts as an EAPC
An EAPC must have pedals that can be used to propel it.
It must show either:

• the power output
• the manufacturer of the motor

It must also show either:

• the battery’s voltage
• the maximum speed of the bike

Its electric motor:

• must have a maximum power output of 250 watts
• should not be able to propel the bike when it’s travelling more than 15.5mph

Well mine shows the manufacturer of the motor but don't see how that is important. It doesn't show the voltage or maximum speed of the bicycle anywhere on it. My motor definitely exceeds a maximum power output of 250W in fact I expect 99% of all ebikes exceed 250W at times.

The only thing there I really comply with is 15.5mph and the same could be said for the vast majority of ebikes but most are illegal according to this government site.

Also look at the text 'pedals that can be used to propel it' that is surely allowing for twist and go throttle ebikes.

You see a lot of debate on ebike forums where some people seem to think their shop bought ebike is legal because they bought it from a shop complete but if its outside the legislation and no one cares that doesn't make it anymore legal than a kit ebike.

 

[flecc]

I mean according to this government site;

Electric bikes: licensing, tax and insurance

Electric bikes meeting the EAPC regulations can be ridden on the road without being taxed, licensed or insured

www.gov.uk

Never treat these government guidance sites as the law, they never are. They are simplified for anyone to read.

The law doesn't specify maximum power. It specifies maximum continuous power. Nor can we use our own definition of what continuous means. That law is laid down in the technical document EN15194.

Having the name of the manufacturer is important for checks, since it is they who have to get the model certified as meeting the relevant market standards.

This isn't correct, it's a confused mix of old and new law:

"It must also show either:

• the battery’s voltage
• the maximum speed of the bike"

Here is the correct law:

"From April 6 2015 the requirement is that the manufacturer, maximum continuous rated output and maximum assisted cutoff speed shall be marked on the cycle."

Nobody does that of course, but that's another story.

And the following is wrong too:

Also look at the text 'pedals that can be used to propel it' that is surely allowing for twist and go throttle ebikes.

The law states the pedals must be capable of propelling the bike.
.

 

[Bonzo Banana]

Never treat these government guidance sites as the law, they never are. They are simplified for anyone to read.

The law doesn't specify maximum power. It specifies maximum continuous power. Nor can we use our own definition of what continuous means. That law is laid down in the technical document EN15194.

Having the name of the manufacturer is important for checks, since it is they who have to get the model certified as meeting the relevant market standards.

This isn't correct, it's a confused mix of old and new law:

"It must also show either:

• the battery’s voltage
• the maximum speed of the bike"

Here is the correct law:

"From April 6 2015 the requirement is that the manufacturer, maximum continuous rated output and maximum assisted cutoff speed shall be marked on the cycle."

Nobody does that of course, but that's another story.

And the following is wrong too:

Also look at the text 'pedals that can be used to propel it' that is surely allowing for twist and go throttle ebikes.

The law states the pedals must be capable of propelling the bike.
.

That is my point I would normally expect a government site like that to give the correct information pretty much at all times. I've not seen such a site give old or false information on other subject matters but here the government site is wrong but that site is there to give guidance to consumers on what makes a ebike legal. As you have pointed out industry ignores many of these rules. When you see legal mid-drive motors peaking at close to 800W but sold as 250W under what formula would that ever really be classed as 250W rating?

We discuss the legality of ebikes here but out in the real world it often seems like almost anything goes except for those super powerful ebikes 2000W or more that do seem to be dealt with occasionally.

It seems consumers, retailers and manufacturers don't take the law seriously except the 15.5mph/25km/h rule most of the time.

 

[flecc]

When you see legal mid-drive motors peaking at close to 800W but sold as 250W under what formula would that ever really be classed as 250W rating?

Yes it would be and is classed as 250 watts. And not just mid drives, I've owned and used an entirely legal hub motor bike with peak consumption reaching 1000 watts, so similar nett power at the wheel as the mid drives you mention.

It's practicality, since a motor that peaked at 250 watts would be completely useless at driving a bicycle. Take the early Giant Lafree from 2001 that used the first Panasonic crank motor. Popular, but it gave weak assistance, so little that it wouldn't sell these days. Below I'm showing you a power graph from it which you can see peaks at almost 500 watts, but the average over time you can see hovers at around 250 watts, so it's rated at at that:



But as said above, that is barely enough, so the technical requirements allow enough tolerance to have the power necessary on today's e-bikes to make them useful.

You are wishing for a world that cannot exist, since there is no such thing as any kind of motor that produces a fixed amount of power at all times in all conditions. The e-bike motor that can peak short term at 800 watts only does so at a certain optimum load and revs. Hit a hill in a gear that it cannot maintain at the optimum state and the power rapidly drops, the motor/controller eventually stalls and may burn out.

The problem with pedelec law is that the legislators are trying to do the impossible, assigning a fixed power rating to a motor which the laws of physics do not allow. It's not just electric motors, i.c. engines also cannot have a fixed power output at all times. Your car maker may tell you it has 100 bhp, but that is only at a fixed revs point, say 5,800 rpm at 90 mph in top gear.

Perhaps the most sensible proposal was the one of the European Parliament, when they proposed removing all pedelec power limits and just having the assist speed limit, leaving it to the designer to supply the power necessary for that. Sadly the EU Commission rejected that sensible proposal.
.

 

[Bonzo Banana]

Yes it would be and is classed as 250 watts. And not just mid drives, I've owned and used an entirely legal hub motor bike with peak consumption reaching 1000 watts, so similar nett power at the wheel as the mid drives you mention.

It's practicality, since a motor that peaked at 250 watts would be completely useless at driving a bicycle. Take the early Giant Lafree from 2001 that used the first Panasonic crank motor. Popular, but it gave weak assistance, so little that it wouldn't sell these days. Below I'm showing you a power graph from it which you can see peaks at almost 500 watts, but the average over time you can see hovers at around 250 watts, so it's rated at at that:

View attachment 48033

But as said above, that is barely enough, so the technical requirements allow enough tolerance to have the power necessary on today's e-bikes to make them useful.

You are wishing for a world that cannot exist, since there is no such thing as any kind of motor that produces a fixed amount of power at all times in all conditions. The e-bike motor that can peak short term at 800 watts only does so at a certain optimum load and revs. Hit a hill in a gear that it cannot maintain at the optimum state and the power rapidly drops, the motor/controller eventually stalls and may burn out.

The problem with pedelec law is that the legislators are trying to do the impossible, assigning a fixed power rating to a motor which the laws of physics do not allow. It's not just electric motors, i.c. engines also cannot have a fixed power output at all times. Your car maker may tell you it has 100 bhp, but that is only at a fixed revs point, say 5,800 rpm at 90 mph in top gear.

Perhaps the most sensible proposal was the one of the European Parliament, when they proposed removing all pedelec power limits and just having the assist speed limit, leaving it to the designer to supply the power necessary for that. Sadly the EU Commission rejected that sensible proposal.
.

• The maximum continuous rated power of the electric motor must not exceed 250 Watts.

Where are these technical requirements that clearly state the range the motor can go to? I'm not wishing for anything except clear legislation. When I look at definitions of 'maximum continuous rated power' they look different to 'average power'. If you have a 600Wh battery that you can discharge in 40 minutes of intensive off-road use how do you get an average of 250W and why is it written as maximum continuous rated power?

I'm still convinced the legislation is so vague that no one adheres to it really. If you had a controller that simply limits power to an absolute maximum of 1000W and the law said 1000W you can be sure manufacturers would create motors that work close to 1000W a lot of the time.

I personally would just limit ebikes to 15.5mph and perhaps a 30kg weight limit so you couldn't have bikes with huge motors or batteries and police could do very simple checks without issues.

It seems to me that hub motors tend to be more legal because the controller and hub motor are separate and there is a limit on how much current you can get to the motor through a cable but mid-drive has the motor and controller together in one unit so can have very high current pathways between the controller and motor and so can peak much higher for longer typically. It gives them their high torque output. Many entry level hub based ebikes have quite low capacity batteries around 200Wh and motors that have controllers that may only peak around 7A or about 250W.

Around here if you said a hub motor had a peak consumption of 1000W they would just class that as illegal and thats it, they certainly wouldn't class that as a legal hub motor and I wouldn't either to be honest. It feels to me that for a 250W rated motor peak consumption should double at most, not end up 4x that. I totally accept 'feels to me' is not a legal term. If they wrote 250W rating, allows for up to 500W for 10% of the time and upto 1000W for 1% of the time then fair enough that I could understand and you could manufacture to those requirements.

 

[flecc]

I'm not wishing for anything except clear legislation.

As I've explained we cannot have that. Motors cannot be defined to a fixed limit, since they vary enormously according to circumstances. There are legal pedicabs with the 250 watt rated Lynch motor that peak at well over 4000 watts. How else would they get the rider and two fat passengers up a steep hill?

The power law is about that sort of practicality, it's not written to satisfy any obsession with precise numbers, since as I've now twice explained, it cannot do that.

If they wrote 250W rating, allows for up to 500W for 10% of the time and upto 1000W for 1% of the time then fair enough that I could understand and you could manufacture to those requirements.

Once again, a motor cannot be manufactured to those requirements for all circumstances, why can't you understand that? Why anyway, just to satisfy the pedants? We have a law which works perfectly ok for the performance required.

It allows sufficient power to assist average riders at up to 25kph. It allows sufficient power at lower cycling speeds to climb very steep hills. It allows sufficient power for a pedicab and pasengers or towing a heavily loaded trailer, at even lower speeds.

Those powers are a matter for the designers, working within the tolerance the legislation gives, and they do a very good job.

You seem to be concerned about the illegal e-bikes, but the law is more than adequate to deal with those. The police could easily take them all off the road, but they obviously can't be bothered.
.

 

[Bonzo Banana]

As I've explained we cannot have that. Motors cannot be defined to a fixed limit, since they vary enormously according to circumstances. There are legal pedicabs with the 250 watt rated Lynch motor that peak at well over 4000 watts. How else would they get the rider and two fat passengers up a steep hill?

The power law is about that sort of practicality, it's not written to satisfy any obsession with precise numbers, since as I've now twice explained, it cannot do that.



Once again, a motor cannot be manufactured to those requirements for all circumstances, why can't you understand that? Why anyway, just to satisfy the pedants? We have a law which works perfectly ok for the performance required.

It allows sufficient power to assist average riders at up to 25kph. It allows sufficient power at lower cycling speeds to climb very steep hills. It allows sufficient power for a pedicab and pasengers or towing a heavily loaded trailer, at even lower speeds.

Those powers are a matter for the designers, working within the tolerance the legislation gives, and they do a very good job.

You seem to be concerned about the illegal e-bikes, but the law is more than adequate to deal with those. The police could easily take them all off the road, but they obviously can't be bothered.
.

Again I'd like to see the exact legislation that shows how much over 250W a motor can go legally and for how long. You are writing in vague terms but most laws try to be specific. 250W means something and clearly motors that use 2000W are illegal. I have seen recent police news stories where they have crushed high power ebikes so a certain level of power is not acceptable. Also controllers convert high voltage to low voltage high current to deliver slow hill climbing ability. So hill climbing might be drawing 15A from the battery at peak but inside the controller this is being converted to higher current at lower voltage to drive the motor up a hill slowly. A 6A controller with 12A peak with a 36V battery can only deliver 36x12 to the controller which is 432W. That is a restriction that is set in stone by the controller. Controllers are typically clearly labelled by their peak current although lower can be set in the parameters in order to use smaller capacity battery packs. I think your argument is almost anything goes but still legal but I personally don't accept that. A typical controller may peak at twice its rated current which is fair enough and if that is the legislation I could understand it, i.e. 7Ax36V is 252W and 14Ax36V is 504W peak I totally accept that as a legal barrier but 800W or 1000W peak definitely not. Also I've seen 7A controllers sold as 250W but 9-10A controllers sold as 350W and stated as illegal for EU use. So the manufacturers know the legal restriction. They are using the 250W nominal rating as the legal barrier not peak. They accept their 350W controller is not legal for use in the EU. That controller is still peaking far less than many mid-drive motors.

 

[flecc]

Again I'd like to see the exact legislation that shows how much over 250W a motor can go legally and for how long. You are writing in vague terms but most laws try to be specific. 250W means something and clearly motors that use 2000W are illegal. I have seen recent police news stories where they have crushed high power ebikes so a certain level of power is not acceptable. Also controllers convert high voltage to low voltage high current to deliver slow hill climbing ability. So hill climbing might be drawing 15A from the battery at peak but inside the controller this is being converted to higher current at lower voltage to drive the motor up a hill slowly. A 6A controller with 12A peak with a 36V battery can only deliver 36x12 to the controller which is 432W. That is a restriction that is set in stone by the controller. Controllers are typically clearly labelled by their peak current although lower can be set in the parameters in order to use smaller capacity battery packs. I think your argument is almost anything goes but still legal but I personally don't accept that. A typical controller may peak at twice its rated current which is fair enough and if that is the legislation I could understand it, i.e. 7Ax36V is 252W and 14Ax36V is 504W peak I totally accept that as a legal barrier but 800W or 1000W peak definitely not. Also I've seen 7A controllers sold as 250W but 9-10A controllers sold as 350W and stated as illegal for EU use. So the manufacturers know the legal restriction. They are using the 250W nominal rating as the legal barrier not peak. They accept their 350W controller is not legal for use in the EU. That controller is still peaking far less than many mid-drive motors.

You've been getting so much wrong in your posts on this subject it's difficult to know where to begin. D8veh was one of the most technically knowledgeable posters ever in this forum and he has bluntly stated that the power is whatever the manufacturer states it to be, and that is largely true since there is no widely accepted law on the power. Technical standard EN15194 is intended to be the EU standard, but out of 28 member countries only France and Britain ever adopted it, neither of then making e-bike motors!

For what it's worth below are the rules for EN15194 power measurement, screenshots of the PDF. (click to enlarge each):




where P= power watts, D= 20 metres, M= mass of rider plus bike Kg, T = time secs to cover distance D.

Both end with the power the manufacturer of the pedelec says it is. Note that there is no test procedure for motors alone (kits). EN15194 is only concerned with complete manufactured pedelecs.

EN15194 has to paid for, but you can read a stray copy on the link below:

http://www.flecc.co.uk/m/EN15194%20document.pdf

.

 

[Sturmey]

I notice some of the local postmen here in Ireland are using heavy duty cargo Radkutsche Musketiers bikes. Perhaps its the shape of things to come.

Radkutsche Musketier Commercial eCargo - Greenaer - eBike Specialists

Irelands premium electric bicycle retailer and full-service repair shop. Our electric bike brands include Winora, Haibike, Riese & Müller, Orbea, Stromer and many more.

www.greenaer.ie

 

[StuartsProjects]

I notice some of the local postmen here in Ireland are using heavy duty cargo Radkutsche Musketiers bikes. Perhaps its the shape of things to come.

Radkutsche Musketier Commercial eCargo - Greenaer - eBike Specialists

Irelands premium electric bicycle retailer and full-service repair shop. Our electric bike brands include Winora, Haibike, Riese & Müller, Orbea, Stromer and many more.

www.greenaer.ie

View attachment 48042

Do they have solar panels on the tops of the boxes ?