The state: “Those newfangled e-bike thingies are actually technically motorcycles, so you need a motorcycle endorsement, insurance, and a license plate to legally ride one.”
Me: Cool. I already have my endorsement, so let me register it as a motorcycle and put a plate on it and I’ll legally ride it, then.
Also the state: “No.”
Gee, thanks.
You forgot the “it has to pass the safety and conformity regulations of a motorcycle” as well. They are technically motocycles, just illegal ones.
Here in Finland, any escooter can be registered as a legal moped (25km/h @ 1kW -> 45km/h @ 4kW). …if it comes with a CoC from the manufacturer/importer proving it passed those requirements, which means here in Finland, no escooter can be registered as a moped (okay, I know like, two exceptions to this, and they are both ancient chain drive/brusheless motor/lead acid things )
Yes. But!
Where I live, the state has a process by which you can submit non-FMVSS certified vehicles for inspection and apply for a VIN, and plate them. Specifically, you can do this for dirt bikes and other off road combustion powered vehicles. But they refuse to allow this for electric bikes, because fuckyouthat’swhy. It’s monumentally irritating.
Oh, I know the answer to this. Take the pedals off.
If it doesn’t have pedals, it can’t legally be a bicycle.
It can’t legally be a moped either - that’s why they have the useless pedals in the first place.Unless they are still living in the 1990’s, and have the requirement of a combustion engine in there, period.
The I guess you just need to tape a diesel generator on it and call it a hybrid.As I understand it the requirement is that it must pass a battery of emissions checks. They refuse to submit electric models to said emissions tests, and citing the logic that a battery powered vehicle would naturally sail past any tailpipe test because it self-evidently creates zero emissions is apparently not sufficient.
I went through this with a planned Surron purchase a couple of years ago and after getting stuck in this Kafkaesque loop with multiple idiots from multiple branches of our DMV including two supervisors, I gave up.
Note that I know how this works (or so I thought), because I already own a plated converted dirt bike, which was not a street legal vehicle when I bought it and is now, because I already went through all of the above with that. My inside knowledge of the bureaucracy gained from doing that apparently didn’t help.
Yeahh god damn that’s frustrating.
The reason for this where I’m from is that any road going vehicle has to meet a bunch of design criteria and go through a number of tests to be signed of as road legal by the state. These are strict and quite expensive so all the grey-area Emotos just dont do them and pass the risk onto the buyer by having a disclaimer “only for use on private property” or something. You may be able to get it road legalised with the help of an accredited engineer, but you’d be footing the bill…
I mean, I know people who have put lights and a plate on dirt bikes and legally rode them. It’s been done before, hell here is an Amazon kit. I think That the issue is more so non legacy manufacturers not being recognized.
Michigan and Indiana are pretty lax on what you can register. As long as it has a frame number & docs from mfr, you can register it. In Indiana less than 5hp doesn’t even require insurance or a motorcycle endorsement.
I’m in Canada, I think it needs a VIN where I’m from
