DJI? Deliveroo? Disabled people? Families? You? Proposals to set a 750w peak power limit appear to be on the cards.
There is a lot of talk flying around the internet about the possibilty of the regulations and classifications surrounding ebikes being amended. The principal thing that kicked off this most recent debate was a statement by the German Bicycle Industry (ZIV). More about this later.
The arguable cause of this debate is the relatively sudden leap up in certain motors’ peak power capacity.
Most full-fat ebike motors have had around 600-700w of peak power assistance. Then the DJI Avinox motor appeared out of the blue with 1,000w of peak power. And as of this week, an update from DJI gives this 1,000w of peak power permanently when in Turbo mode not just for 30 second blasts of Boost.
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More recently there has been the new Specialized Levo with a claimed 720w peak. And it feels like Bosch are about to unleash something soon too (possibly an update to existing Performance Line CX motors to unleash a few more watts).
What’s the problem with power?
Why is more watts a problem? Well, it’s nothing really much to do with mountain biking rider safety or trail erosion or even the forever in the background spectre of illegal de-restriction. It’s to do with pedal assist bicycles straying too far from their original remit and raisn d’être. Namely, to add a bit of extra motor power on top of the rider power going into the pedals.
Anyone who’s ridden a DJI Avinox ebike – such as the Amflow PL Carbon – will know that it doesn’t take very many rider input watts to get the motor ro give out its much hyped 1,000 watts of motor assistance. The experience is akin to using soft-pedalling of the cranks as essentially a throttle.
It’s this ‘support ratio’ issue that the bike industry is concerned about. Although 1,000w pedal assist bikes are still quite far off things like Surron e-motos in terms of power (minimum 12,500w of peak), there’s no denying that higher and higher wattage e-bikes have the potential to stray too far from regular bicycles.
ZIV
So what are ZIV – and a lot of the bicycle industry globally – proposing? In a press release called ‘ZIV positions itself on future EPAC regulations‘ the key paragraphs are as follows:
It considers the following additional parameters to be characteristic of an EPAC*:
- support ratio of 1:4 and
- support ratio of 1:6 possible up to max. 15 km/h and
- max. assistance power of 750 W at the drive wheel and [sic]
- max. weight of 250 kg for single-track** EPAC or
- max. weight of 300 kg for multi-track** EPAC
Separate framework conditions and parameters must be defined for cargo bikes weighing more than 300kg.
*EPAC = electrically power assisted cycle, basically what we mean when talking about ebikes/eMTBs.
**single-track EPAC = two wheels behind each other ie. bicycle.
**multi-track EPAC = three or for wheels ie. tricycle, four-wheel cargo bike etc.
You can see from this that the DJI Avinox would fall foul of these regulations. Both in its more-than-750w peak power and its support ratio of 1:4 (and even the support ratio of 1:6 with a speed restriction of 15km/h).
Regardless of the suggested maximum power wattage (750w), for the support ratio of the Avinox to be allowed under the new proposals the rider would have to be putting in 250w of their own leg power to access the motor’s 1000w of assist.
The support ratio at maximum speed of 15km/h (1:6) is a bit closer to what the Avinox currently does, but it’s irrelevant because the proposals suggest that 750w peak power limit. Which overrules everything.
The maximum weight limits wouldn’t be relevant to e-MTBs but would impact things like cargo bikes and bikes used for car-free ferrying of kids about or certain types disabled persons’ mobiles, as well as those big delivery/courier four-wheelers that can currently use cycle lanes.
What about mountain biking?
As mentioned, those who will lose out are users of pedal assist vehicles with more than two wheels and/or exceed 250kg. Not MTBs then. And this issue is something for the wider bicycle industry to contemplate and find a proper solution for.
What does all this mean for pedal assist mountain bikes? Possibly not that much in the grand scheme of things.
Maybe DJI will have to introduce new firmware/software to restrict the peak power to the suggested 750w. What will exisitng DJI Avinox owners do? Probably nothing. Just hope they don’t get pulled over by the non-existent Rights-Of-Way Police for an inspection.
In all honesty, the peak power of the Avinox is not the be all and end all of the motor. It’s not useable anywhere other than boring fireroad and tarmac. The more interesting aspect of Avinox was its exceptional response, overall ‘intelligence’ and fuel economy.
eMTBs will get a bit more power in MY26 (Model Year 2026) but I suspect they’ll not stray far over 700w peak power and/or 100Nm of torque. And that is totally not a problem.
Potential pitfalls
People are probably going to moan a bit about the 15km/h speed restriction 1:6 support ratio thing ie. you’ll only be able to access your bike’s 750w peak power if travelling below 15km/h. And this is almost certainly going to result in people ‘chipping’ their bike motor to derestrict this. But I also think this won’t be significantly more people than already derestrict their current ebikes.
As ever, it’s the de-restriction issue that remains. Can ebike manufacturers design-out de-restriction? Because they need to.
Also, what if DJI don’t follow the proposals and keep selling 1,000w peak power machines? Who’s going to police such ‘illegal vehicles’ riding along mountain bike trails and bridleways etc?
Opening the article gives me an ‘error repeatedly occured’ error
Hmm. Fine on our browsers here. Will get Tech to investigate.
Also, I forgot to say that ebike industry should be concentrating on making motors more reliable, more efficient and cheaper etc than just doing a wattage arms race for headlines.
I’m using Safari on a fairly old iPad and have managed to have a read now but still got a lot of page reloading. More likely an adverts issue than your words I’d suspect ?♂️
Looks like the post delay is still an issue too
Blame customers, more power sells. Â Not just because of the spec sheet, everyone wants to beat their mates up the hill or at least not be trailing behind.
IT was interesting that in a recent discussion on the DJI bike the only thing that ultimately that seemed to matter to a lot of people was the higher max power and thus less effort required.
Replacing a max speed with a max power (did I read that write) won’t happen in Europe as there are a lot of these bikes used in mix use paths with pedestrians – 25 km/h is plenty fast enough in that environment (but you need to edit your article?)
Well they’d not get their UK CA certification, (CE as was) which would pretty much put a stop to importation.Â
Max weight of 300kg might affect sales of Privateers?
“It’s to do with pedal assist bicycles straying too far from their original remit and raisn d’être. Namely, to add a bit of extra motor power on top of the rider power going into the pedals.’
Not sure I agree with that, shopping bikes have claimed to be car replacement options and recreational mountain bikes have shouted “Further, Faster, Steeper!" from the get go!
I’m happy for the ebike speed limit to stay at 15.5mph. It’s fast enough to keep you riding off road at a fair clip, but not fast enough to terrorise people as you go past, whereas 20mph is actually quite quick for a canal path, town centre, single track.
Why would anyone miss out, except manufacturers wanting to sell us bigger and faster?Â
If you need an ebike due to a disability, or for commuting, or for urban run around, they still can.
15kmh?
Mph surely?
It seems to be targeting the wrong thing. Cargo bikes are a genuinely useful thing, replacing the car and helping reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Mountain bikes with motors are a waste of the world’s lithium and they’re not really going to lose out from the new regulations.Â
The peak power race had to stop. I was just jaw dropped when i read that the 250w limit was what can’t be exceeded for 30 minutes.
I’ve not done much time on an ebike so can’t comment on the support ratios.
I think fundamental to our ebike rules is that can go anywhere a push bike can go. If you want to do 20mph or 30mph that’s fine you can buy an electric motor bike that does that. But you then lose the ability to ride bridleways, cycle paths and trail centres
off-road wise does this sort of power increase erosion/ wear to surfaces? Not trying to start anything just curious if that kind of power actually does something.
IME Undoubtedly. As someone who rides both, it is unnavoidable to do more damage, especially uphill, on an eeb.Â
Agree that maintaining current speed restriction, and reigning in power and torque increases would be a good thing. Make motors and batteries lighter, not bigger and faster
Â
Anecdotally, yes.
a) riders are doing more laps of winch and plummet type stuff, so just more use = more wear
b) a big issue locally is riders going out on the moorland peat in the wet – where previously it was summer use only as you physically couldn’t propel a bike through the bogs, riders are now just sticking it in Turbo and mashing through regardless. Talking to the landmanagers, its becoming enough of an issue that where they would previously turn a blind eye to subtle cheeky use in good conditions (guilty as charged!), they’re going to start actively enforcing bike bans all year round – the peat is now so lacking in vegetation it still erodes even in dry conditions
Sounds about right to me, except everyone I know that has an eeb would go with more durable not lighter.
I’m in no rush to swap my eeber for anything with moar power, but something that could better stand up to our local conditions year round would be very appealing to me and the folks I ride with.
Durable! f’ing durable! Double yes! Why the hell did I not write that?Â
The assistance shouldn’t really be more than any cycling muggle could produce, where’s the tipping point between assistance and the pedals essentially being a throttle?
As ever, there’s no impetus on the manufacturer to stop misuse and no enforcement when there is misuse. Seems the powers that be have turned a blind eye to the obvious e-Mopeds that are being used by deliveroo et al, so someone running 1000w of power instead of 750w and still actually pedaling is never going to get picked up.
300 kg is a very big cargo bike – that’s 90kg more than the EAV four wheelers which a lot of city delivery operators use. Our Riese & Müller Packster bikes are able to carry a car boot’s worth of stuff and are only 50 kg. In the UK, crappy infrastructure is much more of a barrier to families or people with disabilities.