HaraldvonBlauzahnBosch manager in interview: eBike over-motorization is a risk to our business, because eBikes with more than 800 Watt power will lead to much stricter regulations
There’s a whole class of electric vehicles being held back by regulation. We can slap electro motors on wheels and bicycles are not the only vehicles you can build with that tech. Many EU countries are e.g. banning throttles on eBikes, but why are we forcing all those delivery drivers to pedal the whole day? Just give them a gas throttle. For many eBikes uses it really doesn’t make sense to include the whole bicycle complexity of gears, chains, shifting and so on. Just give them a motor and a throttle.
Killing the eBike with additional rules, insurance, mandatory inspections and so on would be absolutely idiotic and a good business model for insurances, car companies and so on, so I’m really afraid that this could happen
There’s a whole class of electric vehicles being held back by regulation.
Do you know that there is a reason for the regulations on light motorcycles, mopeds, mofas, Vespas, scooters and however you name them? It’s the number of fatal traffic accidents. And yes, there are probably over two dozens of these motorized vehicle classes which originally started with the idea of an “bicycle with a bit of motor” such as mopeds and mofas.
I really can’t see this in the traffic accident statistics. Yes, there are a lot of motorcycle accidents, but if you look deeper into them, those are in most cases “real” motorcycles and not those slower variants. And if you take a look at those eScooters, most accidents here are people driving those rental scooters while drunk. That’s a problem, but that’s also a problem you won’t solve by regulating the dude going to the train station in the morning.
It is very clear from statistics of traffic accidents between cars and pedestrians that risk if lethal injuries rises sharply with speed, even at speeds of 30 km/h.
It is also very clear that riding light motorcycles is far more risky thsn riding a bike.
Actually it does make a difference, as cynetic energy is proportionnal to mass, so 30kmh car is much more dangerous than a 30kmh bike. Though it does not invalidate your point
No, that’s not the case. What’s relevant is the relative speed of the two objects, which is 30 km/h.
Suppose the impact coefficient k is similar, it does make a difference whether a bike crashes into a standing car (case 1) or a car crashes into a standing biker (case 2).
Sorry I don’t have much time today to get into it. Seems to me you can’t solve for case 2 here since in this case m2 and m1 are switched. But it does not matter, I am not trying to solve for speed before and after.
The force of the impact does not depend on the mass, I agree, but the energy to dissipate (in the cyclist body) is much higher. I’m just saying that inertia plays a role as it contribute to the energy necessary to stop either vehicule. I am happy to be proven wrong, I just don’t think this is the right equation to do so.
Seems to me you can’t solve for case 2 here since in this case m2 and m1 are switched. But it does not matter, I am not trying to solve for speed before and after.
No, for both cases, body “1” is the biker and body “2” is the car.
The force of the impact does not depend on the mass, I agree,
This is just for the sake if simplicity. The force does in general depend on both masses, not just the mass of the car. Yet, the biker has only ~ 5 - 10 % of the mass of the car and thus, their mass can be neglected and the simplfied solution (m_1 / m_2 -> 0) doesn’t include masses anymore
but the energy to dissipate (in the cyclist body) is much higher. I’m just saying that inertia plays a role as it contribute to the energy necessary to stop either vehicule.
Exactly. This part is included in the coefficient k. Yet, for the simplified solution, the biker doesn’t stop the car in any form.
Suppose a completely plastic impact, k=0: The biker would be stopped to zero velocity in case 1, and in case 2 they would be accelerated to the velocity of the car. Here the magnitude of the force/acceleration doesn’t depend on whether the bike did move or the car did move.
For the elastic case, k=1, car and bike are treated as billard balls: For case 1, the biker moves with the same velocity as before, but in opposite direction. For the other case, the biker would move in opposite direction, but with the double velocity as in case 1. Thus, here, the force causing the acceleration must also be twice.
So as long as the impact is not purely plastic, it does matter whether the biker hits the car (case 1) or the car hits the biker (case 2).