The beginning of the end.... already!

[Wander]

At the end of the day, why not encourage all activities and work together not against each other.

If anything is going to destroy the e-bike industry it is all the negative BS that we are constantly bombarded with and not the bikes themselves.

Well said!

There are some trade members that seem to come on here nowadays almost solely to knock other dealers.

There are others that genuinely seem to be helpful with a hint towards their own products, which we can't blame them for.

& a fair few somewhere in between.

I agree with SRS, would prefer much less negativity.

 

[Electrifying Cycles]

Sales in the Netherlands from a well known maufacturer are 80% Speed Pedelecs which shows there is a demand for them. Lets just hope the law changes soon so people at least have the opportunity to legally ride them on the road.

 

[KTM Bike Industries UK]

I don't think Rob has missed the point at all.

Col you've taken an article about e-bikes generally, in another country, not even in Europe & put your own twist on it just to bang your old drum again.

You must be reading a different link to what I posted. Because it's a UK magazine that's doing the scaremongering, targeting their UK off-road readership, and I don't think I put any spin on it. In fact I said their spin was what concerned us.

 

[Artstu]

99.9% of trail centre riders drive to and from the centre in their cars!

 

[jonathan75]

Sales in the Netherlands from a well known maufacturer are 80% Speed Pedelecs which shows there is a demand for them. Lets just hope the law changes soon so people at least have the opportunity to legally ride them on the road.

Pretty sure that type approval in one EU member state requires the other states to accept the product which has been approved - that's the famous Cassis de Dijon case.

 

[flecc]

Pretty sure that type approval in one EU member state requires the other states to accept the product which has been approved - that's the famous Cassis de Dijon case.

But not the class of bike for road use Jonathon. Accepting the product is not the same as permission to use it on the road, which requires the necessary legal approval. Almost all of the EU countries, including the UK, have refused to pass laws allowing S class e-bikes to be used on their roads.
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[jonathan75]

But not the class of bike for road use Jonathon. Accepting the product is not the same as permission to use it on the road, which requires the necessary legal approval. Almost all of the EU countries, including the UK, have refused to pass laws allowing S class e-bikes to be used on their roads.
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OK here's my reasoning. The mutual recognition rule requires non-harmonised goods approved and sold in one member state to be allowed to be marketed in another member state. Type-approval in one country is therefore type approval in all. This is one of the objects of the EU: to help business by streamlining these kinds of bureaucratic processes in the manner just mentioned.

An absence of rules licensing the use of a particular product, together with an insistence by a member state that new rules are required before it can be used, is the same as a prohibition on the use of that product - I think we can agree as a matter of logic that these amount to the same thing.

And you might say "but surely prohibiting usage and prohibiting marketing are two separate things. Surely you can market a pedelec AND prohibit its actual use under the rule just cited, and therefore fulfil the mutual recognition rule and maintain the ban on usage".

Not according to case C-110/05, the moped trailers case. The CJEU found that a prohibition on usage IS on its face an interference with marketing, and therefore a measure having equivalent effect to a quantitative restriction on imports, contrary to Art 34 of the TFEU (previously Art 28 TEC).

This interference/derogation from the treaties can be permissible but it must be fully justified following all the standard methods required under EU law, including (terms of art here...) rationality, proportionality, least restrictive means, and it must be to attain one of statutory or caselaw grounds of derogation.

You might object "but jon, standard type approval on a vehicle by vehicle basis is already available in the UK" but I think that's onerous and very much an Art 34 MEQR in the history of the caselaw - it's basically banning German goods by subjecting it to onerous approval requirements, where it's already been approved in a member state.

I actually think that the UK has opened itself up to future state liability for lost sales over its inaction.

 

[flecc]

I understand your argument Jonathon, and appreciate the significance. However, it's the EU's law that are in conflict, one not due to any specific country exclusion,

Transport matter policy belongs to the EU according to numerous treaties agreed by member countries, and the mandatory two and three wheel type approval law first introduced to member countries on 9th May 2003 specifies the exclusions from motor vehicle type approval. The only one relevant to us is the EU specified pedelec law, 250 watts maximum, function limited by continuous pedal rotation up to 25 kph (15.6 mph).

So S class e-bikes are motor vehicles needing type approval according to the EU, unless a country makes a specific exception. Since the S class e-bikes do not meet the requirements of the EU to be acceptable motor vehicles, they cannot be registered for use.

So the discrimination in law, if any, is not one of any nation but that of the EU itself, and it is for them to resolve it. The UK for example has not discriminated, such discrimination being forced upon it by EU order. It is not the duty of the UK, nor is it appropriate, for the UK to correct an EU legal error if such exists.
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