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Comment by gentile | Hacker News Reader

A license isn't needed for an electric bicycle. The law states that it is classified as an electric bicycle if it is only pedal assist and only up to 24kph (15mph). The issue arises when either there are no pedals, or it can be operated without using pedals, like these suitcases. Electric only operation moves the classification to a scooter, thus license needed.

https://archive.ph/Fw5lX

https://www.keishicho.metro.tokyo.lg.jp/kotsu/jikoboshi/elec...

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In China some able-bodied people have started riding electric wheelchairs to get around licensing and usage laws restricting scooters. Some of the wheelchairs are pretty quick now, basically the same drivetrain in a different package.

I tried to Google about this but I could not find anything. Can you share a source?

Do these count?

https://www.google.com/search?q=chinese+fast+motorized+wheel...

No idea if this is real but it was one of the results

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9F5vZmm7isw

There was a new carve out created last year that allows driving electric scooters without a license, provided they meet some requirements (speed limiter, a speed indicator light, etc).

https://www.keishicho.metro.tokyo.lg.jp/kotsu/jikoboshi/elec...

How does Loop work? They are rental electric scooters.

Have you noticed how Loop scooters in Japan have a tiny license plate?

That's because they require a license to rent and operate. That's because they are a self powered mobile vehicle. An automobile if you will.

Automobiles in Japan require a license to drive.

Plus you must drive them on the road, with the other automobiles.

FYI nowadays you don’t need a drivers license to ride them. But yeah they are registered vehicles.

JapanTimes agrees with you: https://www.japantimes.co.jp/japan/2023/07/21/explainer/bike...

    > you’ll have to pass a quick traffic test and submit proof of identification on the app in order to begin renting.

They managed to get a new category created just for Luup scooters. I've seen some on social media passive-aggressively wondering what kind of sorcery was at play for that.

Late edit: I should I have written "Luup", not "Loop".

Simple, attach non-functional pedals.

You'd need functional pedals, and for the electric push to be equal or lower than the human motive power.

> for the electric push to be equal or lower than the human motive power

Is that the rule for normal ebikes? That's very restrictive!

In Japan, a bicycle with no functional pedals is called: a broken bicycle.

A bike with a motor which propels itself is called: a motor bike.

Japan has had bicycles with electric assist motors for 10+ years. They are popular with moms who need to carry kids but where a car is too cumbersome.

Japan has also had motor bikes for a century. They are popular with lower class workers who want to skip traffic jams and commute cheaper.

Japan is not confused by the shape of a motor bike. Making it look like luggage does not make it luggage (with a motor) but rather a luggage shaped motor bike. Japan appears to handle this Nominative determinism issue quite well.

What really happens is people like my friend make their own ebike that is super powerful but looks like a normal bicycle, and while it is against the rules nobody ever questions it because it looks like a bicycle.

Looks like it was relaxed in 2008 to up to 200% of input at up to 10kph/6mph then taper to zero at 24kph/15mph, yeah it is kind of restrictive.

I think equal power part is not too complicated to implement, with a load-bearing "just" you just sync synchronous motor driver to the rotor phase and limit current upstream. I believe a prototype also has to be brought to some office to get certified. Frankly it's all par for the course for a Japanese regulation; engineering cost is considered free and everything is supposed to be approved by someone official-ish.

No need, you can always just kick your feet on the ground like a balance bike.

Then the motor is only assisting your foot power, which makes it an ebike.

Such a bad regulations. Rideable luggage actually seems reasonably innovative. It sucks how the government often gets in the way of meaningful improvements. Feels like we are really headed for dark ages.

Sure, except for the people they inevitably run into and/or injure. Sometimes it is better to restrict these things especially in public places.

How does it work for bicycles?

You don’t ride your bicycle through an airport terminal?

Why not? If it can be folded into a carry-on, draw a line between bicycle and wheelchair. I doubt many would object to a carry that turns into an electric wheelchair.

This reminds me so much of the “no vehicles in the park” test.[1] We allow wheelchairs as a special case for people with mobility issues, not because we want bike lanes inside airports.

[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36453856

I have actually, several times.

I own a Brompton, which fits through the baggage X-ray and can be checked like a stroller at the gate. I've flown with it more than 12 times, and you had better believe I've ridden it in the terminal

I only do this during late arrivals when the airport is almost empty, travel at a reasonable speed, and otherwise conduct myself like a civilized human being. On a bike. In the airport. It's great actually.

That's the point, isn't it, no one would ride a bicycle through a crowd, and if they did they'd ride very slowly and with extreme caution. But no such convention exists for animated suitcases.

Bicycles are known and understood by the people you're sharing spaces with; there are rules for where they're allowed and where they're not allowed and how they have to behave. The Japanese laws essentially allow ebikes that mimic bikes very closely to be used as bikes; otherwise you have to follow the rules for a scooter/moped (which is, after all, what you are).

I wish more places were like this.

I'll be riding my bike in a designated a bike lane (which is sometimes shared with pedestrians, dogs, etc.) with clearly marked speed limit signs of 15mph. That's plenty fast in general, but even more so in busy spots. And suddenly a near-silent e-bike will go flying past me (no "On your left," by the way) at speeds close to 30mph. Happens all of the time and is bafflingly reckless and arrogant.

The way folks ride class 3 e-bikes they really should be treated as mopeds: put them on the roads like other motorized vehicles and licensed and (hopefully) forced to obey the rules of the road. Just my opinion, but they seem to break the spirit of being in the bike lane. The touristy day-cruiser eBikes like Lime bikes are fine.

Legally, in many places they are mopeds. The problem is that there is no way to enforce the law because they look like e-bikes. It takes checking model numbers of bike or components. Throttle is relatively easy to notice.

Japan has a very public problem of self powered vehicles running into people/stuff.

With an aging population, drivers who mistakingly hit the accel when they meant to brake, thus running full missile mode into shops and sidewalks make the news almost every day("Prius missile")

The last things people want is additional vehicles plowing forward at the push of a button, this time indoors and/or on the sidewalk from the start.

    > drivers who mistakingly hit the accel when they meant to brake, thus running full missile mode into shops and sidewalks make the news almost every day

"Almost every day"? Hmmm... I do not think so. Wouldn't the same happen in other countries with lots of Prius and old people, like the US?

Yup, and it does, to the order of 16,000 times per year in the US alone: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sudden_unintended_acceleration

While I'm at it, here's the most famous Prius case in Japan, where a 87-year-old geriatric senior bureaucrat ran over and killed a mother and her child, but was treated with kid gloves until the husband whipped up enough public outrage to force the police to do something about it:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Higashi-Ikebukuro_runaway_car_...

That really isn't very many when you consider what the opportunities for failure are with hundreds of millions of people driving many hours a day

No. This is your presumably tech-informed “any regulation that gets in the way of my passing intuition of what’s good is TERRIBLE!” Have you been in a city as dense as (parts of) Japan with completely unregulated use of vehicles like this? It gets quite bad quite quickly. I say this as someone that uses an electric scooter regularly. It’s quite easy for there to be a high enough concentration of idiots doing the wrong thing that it’s not worth it overall. Putting some rules around use is just the intuitive reaction to this, learned by countless jurisdictions worldwide.

"Does it need regulation?" and "Should it need more licensing than an electric bicycle?" are two entirely separate questions, and I agree that answering "yes" to the latter seems wrong.

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