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 )
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.
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.