This article originally appeared on our sister website, Urban Family Shanghai.
By Yuzhou Hu
China is set to implement stricter regulations on e-bikes throughout the country starting on April 15, reports Shine.
The new regulation, called Safety Technical Specifications for Electric Bicycles, takes international standards for e-bikes as reference. For instance, the weight of the vehicle is required to be below 55 kilograms and the speed limit must be a maximum of 25 kilometers per hour. Lithium batteries are now recommended as the power source rather than lead-acid batteries, which are much cheaper than lithium. Moreover, owners are now required to register their vehicles and apply for e-bike plates.
Issued by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the new regulation is slated to completely replace the old one, which was implemented back in 1999.
Image via Chinanews
Many netizens are already dubbing the new regulation as the strictest one in history as it is sure to have a major impact on the e-bike market. First and foremost, a large number of e-bikes won’t meet the standard after April 15. In addition, if new models are to use lithium batteries, the production cost will rise along with the selling price.
The goal of the new regulation is to restrict the behaviors of e-bike riders. Previously, due to the lack of rules, bad drivers were often seen cutting traffic lanes at will and driving at dangerous speeds, which brought pandemonium to the roads and caused safety risks to both themselves and others.
One thing to be noted about the new regulation is that it doesn’t mention e-scooters or segways. Therefore, they will still be counted as unregistered mobility tools and can technically be clamped down by traffic police.
[Cover image via Sohu]
This article was originally published by our sister magazine Urban Family Shanghai. For more articles like this, visit the Urban Family website, or follow the Urban Family WeChat account (ID: urbanfamilyshanghai).
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