TONIGHT 9pm: - E-Bikes: The Battle for Our Streets - Panorama

[saneagle]

Then surely the term should be 'Legal' not 250W because as you can see from this documentary there is massive confusion about ebikes and 250W. This so called professional well researched documentary states 250W maximum power so they don't understand the legislation either. The 250W means nothing in relation to how other electrical devices are certified. I've seen certification where a electrical motor is rated to its maximum wattage before it starts to overheat but I've never seen any other certification where you just state a random wattage number something can operate at and put that on the motor. Is there any other example of that? Certification is not normally random figures like this. So you have tiny hub motors, large hub motors, weak mid-drive motors, super powerful mid-drive motors and direct drive hub motors all certified as 250W. Even the pisspoor tiny hub motors that would struggle to get to 250W are called 250W like the Assist bike at Halfords which is really more of a 140-160W motor or at least that is all the controller can give it. It's rated 250W and sold as 250W despite not being 250W at all its being completely mis-sold as 250W and false advertising but that is the nuts certification we have. I guess you can take that motor and put it with a completely different controller and battery and test it at 250W but then certification is normally about the actual product supplied i.e. its components as configured.

Looking at Chinese trade houses that resell products from Chinese manufacturers i.e. they operate like importers to a degree but buy product in large quantities from factories to export themselves some of these will certify products for Europe to sell as 250W but the manufacturers themselves sell as lets say 750W and other Chinese trade houses just sell as 750W. It's the same product that the reseller/trade house is selling as 250W. It's a mad certification process.

Personally I'm never going to accept 250W as fair or honest certification. I was a compliance officer for many years and never saw anything like this before despite reading 100s of different BSI certification documents and the resultant test certificates based on that certification.

The problem is paradigms in people's heads, not the law. The law is very clear. When people say that the power is capped at 250w, it's because they're too lazy to read the law. They just cut and paste from others, who likewise didn't read the law. It isn't difficult as long as your brain isn't controlled by paradigms. Unfortunately some people, including many forum members, suffer from that badly, and there's probably no cure. That's why we have to go over it again and again and again and again with same people, who for some reason can't comprehend simple English.

Regarding certification. I was also involved in such matters in the automobile industry for 20 years. That's where I learnt that paradigms make life difficult, when all you have to do is read the rules and comply with them, not make your own interpretation of what might have been intended or what you think is right.

 

[flecc]

It's a mad certification process.

Personally I'm never going to accept 250W as fair or honest certification. I was a compliance officer for many years and never saw anything like this before despite reading 100s of different BSI certification documents and the resultant test certificates based on that certification.

I've lost count of how many times I've told you that it is not a power certification, nor ever intended to be, so why do you persist in this misinformation?

As I and a few others have explained, it is a designer rating to cope with the widely varying needs of equally widely variable EAPCs.

The rating is sufficient actual power for every type of EAPC to perform comparably to a bicycle ridden by an average person and thus be permitted on the roads as a bicycle and not legally treated as a motor vehicle.

The 250 watt rating represents what an average person cycling might at most be capable of sustaining. It is in fact NASA's rating for an average person over two hours cycling, hence the EAPC law statement, " maximum continuous rated power" making perfect sense, even in common sense non-technical terms.

If you cannot understand this, you ccertainly should not be misinforming by reclassifying the law as certification, something that it is not.
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[saneagle]

I was a compliance officer for many years and never saw anything like this before despite reading 100s of different BSI certification documents and the resultant test certificates based on that certification.

Here's an anecdote that might help you understand. You probably remember BS5750, which was the national standard for a business's quality system. It said in there that the business should have a system for controlling incoming goods. Because of paradigms, most factories interpreted that as a system of inspectors, inspections, sampling plans, segregation, etc., all in a room somewhere away from production. In actual fact it didn't say anything about how the system should work. I developed a system that I called Dynamic Quality Control, where we only checked stuff where there was a risk of problems or where problems had already occurred.

My incoming goods procedure written in our quality manual was words to the affect that we don't check incoming goods except new stuff that has never been checked before, and if ever we got problems with stuff, we check it until the problem is determined to have gone away. Bear in mind that I'm a certified Lead Assessor myself, so perfectly qualified to pass judgement on company's compliance with BS5750/ISO9000, and I'm also qualified to assess to other more complicated quality standards. Yes, I had a few good discussions when the assessors came to companies I worked at - quite a bit of head scratching until they realised that my system was both compliant and better.

In the Ford Motor Company system (Q1, peviously Q101). It said that you must have a definition of key suppliers, a list of them and statistical data from the supplier that shows that the key characteristics are kept in statistical control within 4 standard deviations of the specification. When they came to assess, they asked to see the definition in our quality manual of a key supplier, I showed them "A key supplier is one that provides statistical evidence, etc... ". They asked how many key suppliers we had. I told them that we had a list but there were none on it because none met that definition. We got maximum score for that and passed the assessment. Previous to that, we had a different definition, a big list of key suppliers and massive holes in the required data, so we failed. Same assessors both times. That's really when I learnt about what compliance means.

 

[guerney]

I keep telling you not to read or watch anything from the BBC. Just about everything they say is wrong. That's not the law. It's just something that's been copied and pasted from some website that doesn't have a clue about these things - probably the government website.

You must have seen those words many times on this forum. Every time they're posted, we explain to you why they're wrong. Why do you keep reproducing them? All it does is cause confusion. Is that your goal?

If an authoritative horse's mouth doesn't correct the BBC, they'll keep misinforming millions of people via TV programmes etc. And it's not just the BBC. Roughly the same is parroted everywhere.


"The Battle For Our Streets' - that like any other form of transport, some people have chosen to not obey the law by riding e-bikes that are more powerful than an EAPC (250-watts of continuous power, cuts out at 15.5mph, no throttle, yadda yadda)."

Adrian Chiles' Panorama episode on e-bikes is poorly researched scaremongering that isn't worthy of your attention

It has happened, the day we as cyclists dreaded. If the otherwise affable and inoffensive Adrian Chiles isn't on side, what hope is there?

road.cc

 

[saneagle]

If an authoritative horse's mouth doesn't correct the BBC, they'll keep misinforming millions of people via TV programmes etc. And it's not just the BBC. Roughly the same is parroted everywhere.

"The Battle For Our Streets' - that like any other form of transport, some people have chosen to not obey the law by riding e-bikes that are more powerful than an EAPC (250-watts of continuous power, cuts out at 15.5mph, no throttle, yadda yadda)."

Adrian Chiles' Panorama episode on e-bikes is poorly researched scaremongering that isn't worthy of your attention

It has happened, the day we as cyclists dreaded. If the otherwise affable and inoffensive Adrian Chiles isn't on side, what hope is there?

road.cc

But you have to understand that when you put that text here, some people still suffer from the paradigm that the BBC speaks the truth, they even try to link scientific papers that back them up. I've seen it many times. There are some really sad cases, which are probably terminal. When you put your text under the control of their paradigms, they believe it to be true, then we have to go over it all again in a vain effort to help them, but sadly, there's no hope.

 

[guerney]

But you have to understand that when you put that text here, some people still suffer from the paradigm that the BBC speaks the truth, they even try to link scientific papers that back them up. I've seen it many times. There are some really sad cases, which are probably terminal. When you put your text under the control of their paradigms, they believe it to be true, then we have to go over it all again in a vain effort to help them, but sadly, there's no hope.

We've got to be able to do more than fill out a complaint form.

Make A Complaint | Contact the BBC

www.bbc.co.uk

Given Bacon's Law, someone here must know someone who can have a word with whoever's in charge of ebike misinformation at the BBC. Don't you know that funny litle bald dude from The Gadget Show in your profile pic?

 

[matthewslack]

It's only nuts if you support the idea that there should be a limit on the amount of power produced. If that was never the intention, then it seems pretty sane to me.

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It only works if your motor is indeed rated at 250w. If you make your own markings, you run the risk of being charged with fraud or something like that, which can have serious penalties. .

I find it quite hard to believe that limiting power to 250W was not the intention! As a legislator, why would you say if you didn't mean it?

It falls apart in a practical sense because of the lazy reuse of a test methodology that was designed to assess minimum continuous power rather than maximum.

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Manufacturers knowingly marking a motor as 250W when they know it can sustain much more is just as fraudulent.

...

In practical terms, the theoretical harm of unlimited power is dealt with by rigorous enforcement of 25km/h speed limit, so I don't see it as a big issue, except for the ease of bypassing the speed limitation.

 

[Cadence]

BA complains to BBC about Panorama e-bike misrepresentation

The Bicycle Association has sent a formal complaint to the BBC about recent coverage of e-bikes and illegal e-motorbikes on the Panorama programme.

bicycleassociation.org.uk

 

[Woosh]

Manufacturers knowingly marking a motor as 250W when they know it can sustain much more is just as fraudulent.

If this were true, none of the Bosch, yamaha , shimano etc would ever be put on sale.

 

[flecc]

I find it quite hard to believe that limiting power to 250W was not the intention!

In Britain back in the1970s it was the intention to have the stated limit of 200 watts and we even had a British Standard ruling as much, BS1727. But that was too low to be useful and in time that being recognised led to the British Standard being cancelled.

We adopted the newer 2002 EU standard in 2003 which was NOT intended to be a maximum power but only a rating. Presumably this was to match the needs of the by then widely diverse forms of EAPCs necessitating a wide range of powers, but all still called 250 watts as the relationship to human cycling power.

This is in no way fraudulent or dishonest when one considers that an EAPC is powered by the combination of rider and motor assistance, which depending on the rider, could at times amount to over 1000 watts peak on top of the 250 stated, or 450 watts on top sustained, bringing the total to 700 watts sustained.

In Japan in stark contrast, the 250 watts was a rigidly enforced limit, which had to reduce proportionally the more the road speed exceeded 15kph / 9.6mph. This reflected the low speeds of normal Japanese cycling, commonly up to only 15kph.

In practical terms, the theoretical harm of unlimited power is dealt with by rigorous enforcement of 25km/h speed limit, so I don't see it as a big issue

This was the position of the European Parliament who, after debate, recommended that there should be no power limit stated, reliance being only on the assisted speed limit. Unfortunately the EU Commission refused to accept that.
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[matthewslack]

If this were true, none of the Bosch, yamaha , shimano etc would ever be put on sale.

In Britain back in the1970s it was the intention to have the stated limit of 200 watts and we even had a British Standard ruling as much. But that was too low to be useful and in time that being recognised led to the British Standard being cancelled.

We adopted the newer 2002 EU standard in 2003 which was NOT intended to be a maximum power but only a rating. Presumably this was to match the needs of the by then widely diverse forms of EAPCs necessitating a wide range of powers, but all still called 250 watts as the relationship to human cycling power.

This is in no way fraudulent or dishonest when one considers that an EAPC is powered by the combination of rider and motor assistance, which depending on the rider, could at times amount to over 1000 watts peak on top of the 250 stated, or 450 watts on top sustained, bringing the total to 700 watts sustained.

In Japan in stark contrast, the 250 watts was a rigidly enforced limit, which had to reduce proportionally the more the road speed exceeded 15kph / 9.6mph. This reflected the low speeds of normal Japanese cycling, commonly up to only 15kph.



This was the position of the European Parliament who, after debate, recommended that there should be no power limit stated, reliance being only on the assisted speed limit. Unfortunately the EU Commission refused to accept that.
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The notion in your last paragraph still makes perfect sense!

Maximum power capability doesn't matter if speed is capped, as you can't use much at 25km/h. Strict enforcement of that is relatively simple.

That does seem to be the focus of some police forces.

 

[Az.]

Maximum power capability doesn't matter if speed is capped

It does matter as without power limit you would have tanks or tractors with pedals registered as EAPCs.

In my opinion law is well thought through. Not ideal, but good enough. 250W power rating gives manufactures flexibility for various applications without unnecessary complication of rules. After all mountain bikes need much more power than city bikes and cargo bikes need even more.

 

[portals]

Whole law is written to protect interests of certain groups. Nothing new under the sun.

The law is a mess...

You can overclock processors too.

You can 'overclock' most things if you apply more voltage...

That is even more disappointing. I hope you didn't adopt similar rebellious attitude at work. Perhaps you would like to explain why? What is the logic behind having illegal motor?

I was an electronic engineer by 'trade', I got out of it when the arse fell out of electronics business late 90s when most of the big boys went bust, massively downsized or just left 'Silicon Glen' (see what they did there), Motorola, NEC, Ferranti, Digital, HP, National Semiconductor, Chunghwa etc. etc. and IBM left Greenock...

Consultancy pays way more anyway...

I require the power to get up steep hills...that's it.

What about reversed scenario?

So instead of a car hitting me I hit a car on bike, same outcome...?

 

[Az.]

So instead of a car hitting me I hit a car on bike, same outcome...?

What if you hit somebody and cause serious body injury and this somebody had good team of layers with aim of squeezing every last penny out of you? How riding illegal vehicle without license and liability insurance would help you in court?

 

[soundwave]

What if you hit somebody and cause serious body injury and this somebody had good team of layers with aim of squeezing every last penny out of you? How riding illegal vehicle without license and liability insurance would help you in court?

just stab them to death seems the thing to do round here fkn dent me car.

Man run over and stabbed in Gloucester

A man who was stabbed and run over in Gloucester is taken to hospital with life-threatening injuries.

www.bbc.co.uk

 

[portals]

A throttle is neither legal, nor not legal. Like the power limit, people get everything wrong about them, and because they don'tread the rules, they think it's muddy and confusing. The problem is, like with the power, they have pre-conceptions of what the rules might be, and they have difficulty letting go of those paradigms. The only rule is that your bike is not allowed to propel itself above 4mph without pedalling. As long as you're pedalling, you can use whatever device you want to control power or speed.

If you have a throttle with a KT controller, you can make it completely legal with the settings of P4 and C4 (P4 =2, C4=2, IIRC but check). That gives 4mph max when not pedalling and 15.5 mph with max power when pedaling, assuming you set your global speed limit to 15.5 mph. That's the best way to use a throttle with a KT controller.

I'm aware of the throttle limit so going to give this a go and see how bike feels with throttle limited and 15.5mph. 4pmh might be useful for taking off from lights.

Regarding the "can I have my bike back please" the answer is yes. Exactly that situation arose in London, when the police seized a guy's fleet of ebikes after they used a device to measure current from the battery and calculated that the power was a lot above 250w. I wrote a letter explaining the law for the guy's lawyer, which he presented to the police. They immediately returned the bikes with a letter of apology. I guess he was able to get compensation for his losses too, but I didn't get involved in that. I detailed the letter in another thread somewhere, which you can use if it ever happens to you.

Can you post link pls to that thread as searching here is pointless?

It only works if your motor is indeed rated at 250w. If you make your own markings, you run the risk of being charged with fraud or something like that, which can have serious penalties. It would probably be better not to have any markings, though the law also requires you to have them, so you could fall foul of that, but I never heard of a case. without markings, it's probably going to be a case of guilty unless you can prove your innocence.

Ooft, innocent until proven guilty in UK, no? If it says 250W on it they would have to prove otherwise?

 

[portals]

What if you hit somebody and cause serious body injury and this somebody had good team of layers with aim of squeezing every last penny out of you? How riding illegal vehicle without license and liability insurance would help you in court?

'What if' the moon is made of cheese?

 

[soundwave]

 

[flecc]

Can you post link pls to that thread as searching here is pointless?

This may be Saneagle's post you want:

De restrict for off road use

Thanks for all ur advice,by off road i meant i wouldnt be riding it on the road , and yes private land is the land owned by a local guy who said its fine, kinda new to this but thanks for all your help If you wanted to derestrift, you should have asked before you bought the bike. Some are...

www.pedelecs.co.uk

.

 

[saneagle]

Manufacturers knowingly marking a motor as 250W when they know it can sustain much more is just as fraudulent.

It isn't fraudulent. When they stamp it 250w, it means that it can handle 250w. It must be able to run at 250w at optimum rpm indefinitely without over-heating. It complies with that. There is no requirement for how much extra power it can handle.

You still seem to have the idea in your head that the law limits the output power somehow. It doesn't. They tell you want the rating must be and how to test it. If it passes the test, it's compliant.