500w motor will need bigger batterys, I'll stick to my 250w and low gearing to get me up hills - 14.1 inches is my lowest
Most of the high powered e-mountain bikes with mid-drive motors have controllers between 20-25A delivering up to 900W when climbing hills etc. The way legislation is written in Europe is the motor just has to operate at 250W it doesn't have to be restricted to it. It is perhaps the weirdest legislation ever to come out of Europe. Most ebike legislation in the world is written with regard how much the controller provides in power to the motor same as most other devices with electric motors that have a controller which brushless motors require. The issue is will the new legislation be written as per sensible legislation in how much power the controller sends to the motor in which case 500W would be a huge reduction in power compared to many store bought e-mountain bikes with mid-drive motors or is it going to be written that the motor just has to operate at 500W but can exceed it so we end up with e-mountain bikes delivering 1800W of power.
Surely there is no one in this forum that doesn't realise that 250W rating is just a random wattage figure of no meaning. You have weak little Assist ebikes in
Halfords with 24V batteries and can only muster about 12-15Nm in torque at best and you have e-mountain bikes delivering around 100Nm of torque all called 250W. It's like have a 50cc moped and a 3000cc motorbike and calling both a 500cc motorbike it makes no sense the only difference is both the moped and the motorbike would have the same speed restriction to be comparable to ebikes.
We need to get to sensible and fair legislation which can be enforced properly by the police without a degree in electrical engineering. The controller is the obvious and simplest way of stating ebike power and this is used in most places in the world.
As for China twist and go throttles are the norm and lead acid gel batteries are commonly used without the fire risk but I believe they have a weight restriction of 20kg on ebikes. A weight restriction seems quite sensible to me and with lead acid gel batteries I wouldn't of thought 20kg leaves much margin for overbuilding ebikes.
If we want to create new legislation which is sensibly written based on the controller and not make existing ebikes illegal then really we should be looking at around 850-900W as the new maximum wattage. I can't see how they can they can limit ebikes to 500W controllers and allow existing ebikes that are close to 900W staying legal.
