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Comment by SR2Z | Hacker News Reader

Yeah, e-bikes with thumb throttles are so good that the only reason they haven't already supplanted motorcycles is that there are ten bajillion old unkillable motorcycle engines in use.

It's a shame that US law doesn't have a nice in-between that would slot these bikes between proper e-bikes and motorcycles.

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What's wrong with following motorcycle regulations?

Because e-bikes have effectively done regulatory arbitrage and the sky didn't fall. You want more people using small electric vehicles where before they would have used a car, you lower the burden to get one on the road.

Head injuries are way up.

Because owning a motorcycle is a huge pain in the ass on account of motorcycles costing a decent amount of money, weighing 300lbs, going on the highway. If a $1000 ebike can only hit 40mph and weighs less than 100lbs, why not let people just buy them and ride them with a normal drivers' license?

The ebike could meet motorcycle regulations easily and cheaply.

Ebikes definitely aren't a viable alternative in Asia yet. Most Asian countries either have no charge stations or very few. Range doesn't compare with gas motorcycles.

Hundreds of millions of motorcycles are still in active use with no real incentive to change

Genuine question, could many of them not charge at home? I own an EV and the number of charging stations near me is irrelevant to it because the 120V outlet in my garage is more than sufficient. My naive thinking is that an ebike is an order of magnitude smaller, so surely the same outlet would be even less of a limitation, right? (not to mention that many other countries have ~240V standard outlets)

Maybe the answer is truly "no, that wouldn't actually be practical for how people in those places live" for some reason, but I'm genuinely curious.

> Ebikes definitely aren't a viable alternative in Asia yet. Most Asian countries either have no charge stations or very few. Range doesn't compare with gas motorcycles.

I was in China last year and one apartment complex I stayed at had a garage full of e scooters and bikes all plugged in to charge.

The streets in China are remarkably quiet now with so many electric vehicles.

Nope, they're increasingly viable. Nearly 10M electric scooters/bikes were sold last year, with the top three players being China, India and Vietnam.

https://www.motorcyclesdata.com/2026/03/11/electric-motorcyc...

Just those 3 countries is over 3 billion people. Most of them can't afford cars

> Most Asian countries either have no charge stations or very few

I think Vinfast would like to have a word with you…

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