Type and Description: What is an E-Bike (EAPC)?

An e-bike is just like a normal bicycle with a power-assisted motor attached to help the rider uphills. Yes, that is what most people think an e-bike is, but there is so much more to its name and as you will soon see, an e-bike is not always an e-bike at all! So let’s start with a quick Google shopping search for e-bikes…

Here we have a selection of 18 “e-bikes” from Google shopping feed and it is clear that some of them are not e-bikes at all. So, how many of these do you think are actually classified as e-bikes? Let’s cross out the ones that are not and take a look at that image again…

As you can see, only 5 of the e-bikes from the Google shopping feed are actually classified as real e-bikes! Why? Surely, there are more than that. Well, it’s all about compliance and under UK law an e-bike is called an EAPC and this is classified as any vehicle with pedals, with a max speed of15.5mph and maximum motor power of 250 watts.

ANYTHING over this amount is not an e-bike at all and without pedals (even with the correct motor and max speed) it is still classed as a ‘twist and go’ EAPC and it does not meet the EAPC rules, anything else more powerful and it is classed as an electric motorbike or electric moped. But let’s face it, the UK laws on e-bikes are a little bit too conservative and really need an update for modern times. So ignoring the motor and speed limits we end up classifying an e-bike as a motorised pedal-assisted vehicle. So is this an e-bike then?…

This BEAST is a B-52 Stealth Bomber Off-Road E-Bike and it ticks all the boxes we have made for the requirements of it being an e-bike. It has pedals that make it a normal bicycle and it has an electrically assisted motor, but yet it is clearly an off-road e-motorbike with pedals! So maybe we just need to call them e-bicycles instead.

So, by now you are starting to realise that an e-bike is not always an e-bike at all and EAPC ‘electrically assisted pedal cycles’ is probably the better name for them. So to answer the question, what is an e-bike? It seems that term describes a lot of things, but knowing and understanding what e-bike you want will help you choose something that is appropriate for you, even if that isn’t what an e-bike really is.