California lawmakers are right to be concerned about the spread of high-powered electric devices marketed as e-bikes. There is some truth behind the now-familiar image of 12-year-olds doing wheelies through suburban streets on machines far more powerful than a legal electric bicycle. But too many of this year’s bills respond to that concern by going after the wrong target, and they will not deliver the results anyone actually wants. Instead of drawing a clear line between legal e-bikes and illegal e-motos, these proposals blur it further. They add burdens to the bikes people actually rely on, while failing to directly address the devices creating the confusion in the first place.

California needs to protect the promise of e-bikes, not let the e-moto backlash distort the law. In this century, e-bikes have been one of the most important transportation success stories in the state. They help people replace car trips. They expand access to biking for older adults, working families, and people who might not otherwise ride in hilly terrain. They make biking more practical for longer distances, hills, errands, school dropoff, and everyday life. In a state that talks constantly about climate, congestion, affordability, and mobility, e-bikes should be an obvious part of the solution, and under settled California law, they already are.

A legal e-bike is clearly defined. It has a motor of no more than 750 watts and falls into one of three classes with established speed limits. That framework was not accidental. It was designed to allow electric bicycles to expand mobility without collapsing the distinction between a bicycle and a motorcycle.

Increasingly, higher-powered electric devices, often called e-motos, are being advertised and sold as if they are ordinary e-bikes, or at least in ways that do not make the distinction clear to consumers. Many exceed the 750-watt cap. Some are capable of motorcycle-level speeds and acceleration. Yet they are marketed to families and young riders using the same language and labels that apply to Class 1, 2, and 3 electric bicycles.

The Bills Moving in the Wrong Direction

Some lawmakers are responding to real public concern in exactly the wrong way. Instead of cracking down on illegal high-powered devices being sold as e-bikes, these bills would burden the legal e-bikes people actually use for transportation.

CalBike is opposing AB 1557 and AB 1942, take action with us.

AB 1557 would rewrite the rules for legal e-bikes in ways that create confusion, make many bikes less practical, and impose new burdens on riders, retailers, and manufacturers without squarely addressing the illegal devices driving concern in the first place.

AB 1942 would require registration and license plates for certain classes of e-bikes, pulling bicycles into a motor vehicle framework that does not fit and will do little to solve the actual problem.

California should be drawing a clearer line, not a blurrier one. That is why CalBike is co-sponsoring approaches like SB 1167, which focus on truthful labeling, clear definitions, and stopping illegal e-motos from being marketed as e-bikes. And worse, these bills risk reinforcing a false story: that e-bikes themselves are the problem.

E-bikes are not the source of California’s traffic violence crisis. They are one of the exits from it. They give people a way to make short trips without climbing into a two-ton vehicle. They offer a cleaner, cheaper, more humane form of transportation. They are not a fringe gadget. They are one of the most practical tools we have to reduce car dependence. Once lawmakers start treating e-bikes as a nuisance to be contained rather than a public good to be protected, the whole conversation shifts in the wrong direction.