micromobility - Ebikes, scooters, longboards: Whatever floats your goat, this is micromobility
Ebikes, bicycles, scooters, skateboards, longboards, eboards, motorcycles, skates, unicycles: Whatever floats your goat, this is all things micromobility!
"Transportation using lightweight vehicles such as bicycles or scooters, especially electric ones that may be borrowed as part of a self-service rental program in which people rent vehicles for short-term use within a town or city.
micromobility is seen as a potential solution to moving people more efficiently around cities"
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I can only offer a morsel of anecdata from around my area, but a rudimentary sample of the ebiking public while waiting at red lights in the last few weeks would suggest that yes, a good number of people riding bikes have the throttle pinned and are going at a good clip, which I would estimate to be 20 MPH (32 kph), the existing Class 2 limit.
Granted, I'm only really ever at red lights long enough to survey anything when I'm in the suburbs. And I suspect the thinking here is that 20 MPH is plenty fine if the alternative is walking or riding slower on sidewalk. At least around here, most probably know someone who's eaten pavement on an e-scooter at 15 MPH, so 20 MPH is likely a reasonable pace for a lot of people.
Such a design could work, but probably can't be done with a firmware update for existing bikes. A lot of throttles are just -- and I'm simplifying for generality -- a potentiometer feeding an analog signal to the motor controller. The latter might not be able to detect the absence of a throttle, but merely that if a throttle is present, it is not engaged. That's not sufficient to meet the clarified laws for 2025, so perhaps the industry will rise to produce throttle-presence detecting ebikes going forward.
Personally, I removed the throttle from my rather-old Class 3 ebike long ago, because I just didn't use it. When I'm going at the full 28 MPH (45 kph), I've got a better feel for the road conditions when I'm actively pedaling, and with the torque sensor backing me up. But I bike as my primary mode of transportation, despite other options available, so it's also just more fun this way.