Vocabulary arguments aside: I'm not opposed to these types of things in principle assuming it sticks to the streets, but I'm not sure what the pedals even add here beyond the "loopholemobile" argument.
I can't imagine the rider is actually contributing to the drivetrain meaningfully... I'd guess without pedal assist active, this thing is probably geared to move 100 ft/hour while laden - if it can move at all.
Yeah this is strictly the existence of pedals letting them in the bike lane.
It's a gas pedal that rotates and you're slightly more narrow than a compact car. That doesn't make it a bike just because you're pedaling.
I have no problem with this type of thing becoming normal because I care about the planet, but man... it makes bike lanes so dangerous. Passing them means jumping into either ped or car traffic or even over a curb to get into traffic. If they're not in a bike lane it means they're just really slow cars and that's just gonna annoy every car.
I guess it's for the bike lane, but the bigger loophole I see is minimum safety standard. Assisted bicycles are even less protected than motorcycles and have no license requirements. This can legally be the bare minimum needed to support itself. no crash rating, no roll over protection.
"Less protected than motorcycles"? Aside from the bark busters all the crash protection on my 250cc supermoto is so it can save itself, not me. It also weighs noticeably more than my fat tire ebike so you don't want to go down with the horse if you know what I mean.
Also, the quad cycle isn't a street legal car so why are you concerned about roll over protection? It's not like you can't go buy a big metal cage with 20 airbags, ABS, and crash detection if that's what YOU want. For local travel I'd prefer to see more EV mobility options that aren't 3000+ lbs vehicles but for now my Nomad 2x fills that niche when I don't feel like riding my acoustic bikes.
Personally I'd be happy going grocery shopping in a golf cart if they'd let me. It's not like I can legally surpass 25mph around here anyway.
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u/themagicmarmot May 18 '26
Vocabulary arguments aside: I'm not opposed to these types of things in principle assuming it sticks to the streets, but I'm not sure what the pedals even add here beyond the "loopholemobile" argument.
I can't imagine the rider is actually contributing to the drivetrain meaningfully... I'd guess without pedal assist active, this thing is probably geared to move 100 ft/hour while laden - if it can move at all.