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Parents Are Accidentally Buying Their Kids Electric Motorcycles Instead Of E-Bikes
(www.jalopnik.com)
this post was submitted on 19 Nov 2025
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micromobility - Bikes, scooters, boards: Whatever floats your goat, this is micromobility
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Uh... They're not the same thing? ๐ค
Got two wheels? Electrically powered? That's an electronic bicycle. ๐คทโโ๏ธ
Everything sounds the same if you strip it down to such a basic description, yeah?
In that sense, this is a bus.
This is a dog
And this is a crocodile
Fundamentally, what different an ebike make is really just their power output and the maximum speed it capable of, and it's defined different from country to country. Some place in US made everything as an ebike if they have pedal, but in some other country, they define it via the power output, the speed it's able to go, and the existence of a throttle, and if anything that goes beyond that limit it's either defined as a class 3 ebike, s-pedelec, or a moped. It's kinda like how scientist trying to define what is what, even though some animal look more closely than what it supposed to be(like shark and dolphin?)
"Behold! A man:"
one is 160w, the other is 900w.
one goes 15-20mph, the other goes 50-55mph.
big difference when you're giving one to your kid.
"Just go easy on the throttle, you'll be 'aight."
Conventionally, bicycles require the rider to provide the power through leg movement, whereas motorcycles require the rider to twist a handle.
Ebikes have blurred the line here with some having pedal assist and others having throttle control. It's not as cut and dry as everything with two wheels and an electric motor being the same thing.
Some have both. Like Onyx bikes. They have vestigial pedals and a throttle. Tried peddling one without the throttle and it was like peddling a bike underwater
I'm uncertain if you tried pedalling an Onyx ebike that had a throttle you didn't use while riding it, or if you tried peddling some other ebike that had power assist but no throttle control.
Either way, something with pedal assist shouldn't feel like riding underwater even if the battery is dead. Similar to an escalator becoming stairs in a power failure, an ebike should just become a bike. Though it would be noticeably heavier.
I suppose how well it does unpowered is more an indication of build quality though. Certainly some ebikes are so shoddy they are practically unrideable when the battery is depleted.