Kalkhoff Endeavour BS10 400Wh
- Thread starter CyberCrime
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The DfT gave a very negative indication to queries about legalising fast and/or higher powered e-bikes. We are having to wait until at least 2016 just to get the current law tidied up, something that's been overdue since November 2003, so the chance of getting anything less restrictive is beyond the lifetime of many of us.Useful link, in Germany they do benefit from a specific law around speed pedelecs would be great if the UK had the same. Would be better spending time pushing for this
D
Deleted member 4366
Guest
There seems to be some misunderstanding about this class of vehicles. The Europeans have a registration class for them, so you fill in some forms and get your number plate.
In UK there's no class for them with which they comply. They'd need substantial modification to be registered as a motor vehicle, and the registration procedures are complicated even if you could modify them to comply, so basically, it's not possible for your average punter to register them.
With the mess that our legislators have created, I guess theses bikes will enjoy the same "amnesty" that all the other bikes are enjoying, which are equally as illegal. Don't forget, the legal limit is 200W not 250W. How many dealers remind their customers of that, before they ride their bikes out of the shop?
Dave...But the 'amnesty' to 250 watts has been stated in print by the Dft,they have even stated that no prosecutions will be made on 250 watt bikes. However,there is no such 'amnesty' for 350 watt and/or 28mph.
I have written to Trading Standards and VOSA to seek clarification.
It would be so easy for me to produce a high powered,high speed version of my Arriba and Ibex models,if Kudos did such a move,as a volume seller, we would produce hundreds of such bikes,that would force a decision by VOSA.
I met a guy at the Manifold Trail who had a BS10 Kalkhoff...his words to me where ' Can't understand why you guys are bothering with 250 watt motored bikes,my Kalkhoff would tear up those hills'....when I pointed out to him that it was a moped and that he was legally excluded from using the Manifold Trail,he said 'I dont care a f.... about that I'll ride it where I like'.
I have asked KTM if they are prepared to supply S-Class bikes to me to compete with Kalkhoff....their response,just received....'its illegal and whilst customers might be happy to ignore it,KTM don't feel they nor their dealers should be putting their customers at risk by sending them out onto the streets on bikes that could put them at risk of massive legal costs should they be involved in an accident'.....I think that echos my thoughts and attitudes exactly.
I will report back the reaction from DTS and VOSA.
This thread has effectively bought this matter to a head and we need a legal resolution.
Dave Elderfield
MD,Rally Design Ltd,t/as Kudos Cycles.
I have written to Trading Standards and VOSA to seek clarification.
It would be so easy for me to produce a high powered,high speed version of my Arriba and Ibex models,if Kudos did such a move,as a volume seller, we would produce hundreds of such bikes,that would force a decision by VOSA.
I met a guy at the Manifold Trail who had a BS10 Kalkhoff...his words to me where ' Can't understand why you guys are bothering with 250 watt motored bikes,my Kalkhoff would tear up those hills'....when I pointed out to him that it was a moped and that he was legally excluded from using the Manifold Trail,he said 'I dont care a f.... about that I'll ride it where I like'.
I have asked KTM if they are prepared to supply S-Class bikes to me to compete with Kalkhoff....their response,just received....'its illegal and whilst customers might be happy to ignore it,KTM don't feel they nor their dealers should be putting their customers at risk by sending them out onto the streets on bikes that could put them at risk of massive legal costs should they be involved in an accident'.....I think that echos my thoughts and attitudes exactly.
I will report back the reaction from DTS and VOSA.
This thread has effectively bought this matter to a head and we need a legal resolution.
Dave Elderfield
MD,Rally Design Ltd,t/as Kudos Cycles.
And the DfT has made it clear that there is no tolerance beyond that 250 watt concession which is solely an interim measure pending the change to that in the law. Higher powers and assist speeds can and probably will be prosecuted when traffic officers happen upon them, which is usually in connection with a road accident. At least two accident investigations in the Greater London area have shown that traffic officers are far from ignorant about the legal requirements.
Exceeding the 250 watt and/or 25 kph assist limits are motor vehicle offences, not e-bike ones, therefore punishable with some quite severe multiple penalties.
.
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It sounds perfectly simple to me. Kudos are well aware that VOSA and DfT are not going to relax the position as regards 350W bikes.
Since mass market suppliers like yourselves and KTM are not willing to compete with niche market products from Kalkhoff you have decided to stamp out their sales in the UK market. Just as well as these bikes are not meant to be sold in large numbers and the market currently sees to that. As I said before - it is sour grapes on your part. If you cannot find a way to get some for yourselves you are not having anyone else getting it.
You can hide behind your hearsay quotes and populist citings but I am perfectly clear of your actions and motivations now, and cannot share in your conjured up saintly motivations. Based on your reported previous spats between you and 50Cycles I can only put this down to a spiteful personal retaliatory vendetta and have lost all respect for you and Kudos. Shame on you.
Since mass market suppliers like yourselves and KTM are not willing to compete with niche market products from Kalkhoff you have decided to stamp out their sales in the UK market. Just as well as these bikes are not meant to be sold in large numbers and the market currently sees to that. As I said before - it is sour grapes on your part. If you cannot find a way to get some for yourselves you are not having anyone else getting it.
You can hide behind your hearsay quotes and populist citings but I am perfectly clear of your actions and motivations now, and cannot share in your conjured up saintly motivations. Based on your reported previous spats between you and 50Cycles I can only put this down to a spiteful personal retaliatory vendetta and have lost all respect for you and Kudos. Shame on you.
The rest of the industry is quite happy to sell legal 250 watt x 15,5 mph bikes. Its only 50 cycles who find it necessary to sell illegal (when not registered as a moped) bikes. Why don't 50 cycles/Kalkhoff fall in line with the rest of us and compete on a level playing field.
Let's be honest 50 cycles past history on this forum is hardly 'saintly'.They seem to subscribe to the marketing school 'there is no such thing as bad publicity!'
50 cycles have a good product with the Kalkhoff bikes,they could probably succeed just as well selling cycle track legal bikes.
I just don't understand how you can consider my actions against 50 cycles as being sour grapes,they are selling an illegal product and gaining a commercial advantage from that illegality,it is only sensible business practice to negate that advantage.
I am afraid the rest of the post is meaningless ramblings,your name isn't Scott by any chance?
Now,this is getting boring,I will let the various authorities make decisions in this matter. If they take no action then we all know that it is open house for us all to sell illegal bikes,which is a step I would rather avoid.
KudosDave
No, my name isn't Scott - I have no agenda with Kalkhoff or 50Cycles but I do have a desire to blast apart hypocritical and greedy behaviour.
You are well aware that this is meant to be a small niche market and not a flog it cheap flog it in bulk market which is where Kudos sit. Those bikes are not meant to be sold to every Tom, Dick & Harry at a cheap price. They are expensive due to low demand - precisely because of the very complications you have outlined to death.
This is nothing to do with legal / illegal selling or misselling - it is everything to do with there not being a system in place to necessitate prior dealer registration of these bikes to ensure they get registered with VOSA. It is rather like leaving tax loopholes open - you cannot fail to legislate against something and then start crying and appealing to people to toe the line out of the goodness of their hearts when they legitimately take advantage.
What users do after sale in the case of bikes is not the responsibility of the dealer, provided they have acted reasonably to make customers aware of their responsibilities - which in the case of 50Cycles they do.
You may not like it that 50Cycles take a different view to you - but if you wish to retain the moral high ground then what you should be doing is keeping quiet and letting the market take its course. Running to the authorities to try to stop something because you can't rush in and inappropriately flood the market with cheap competing products or trying to tip them off to stop your competition selling bikes is just plain dirty tactics and nothing you are saying leads me to think otherwise. It is your actions which trouble me far more than those of 50Cycles - which are merely legitimate transactions between willing buyer and willing seller, neither of whom commit any offence at the point of sale.
For my own part I investigated S-Pedelecs and elected not to buy one. I bought a different Kalkhoff instead. I would not have bought any other bike at the time I was looking. So you didn't lose any sales in this quarter !
For the record, I have nothing commercially or personally to do with 50Cycles - they do not even know who I am out of their customer base. Everything I have posted is from a plain evaluation of your actions. There is a saying - two wrongs do not make a right, and it is your own desire (given your volume sales space in the marketplace) to sell S-Pedelecs if you get a green light that really need examining for what they are.
I would have thought someone who had been in the market as long as you seem to have been would have the maturity to understand this and focus on your brand's core market space rather than running into this area like a bull in a china shop for commercial ends. You know perfectly well what the position is regarding 350W bikes. It should be clear that this area is one which is not suited for supply by a business such as your own. Imho.
You can however purchase a Non Road Legal KTM motocross bike. Use it off road or add indicators and register for road use.
What's the difference? Sounds like a load of Bull when it comes to S Class Bikes.
Whist we are on it, one can be subject to massive legal costs crashing a normal unpowered cycle or a car with a dodgy tyre. Lets put any risks into perspective
All this negative talk really does detract from owning a Pedelec, "legal" or otherwise. Lets just get on, cycle and enjoy.
D
Deleted member 4366
Guest
The difference is that the off-road motorbike is a road one with the indicators removed. S-class ebikes were never designed with UK Construction and use regulations in mind, so just adding indicators wouldn't be enough.
Here's the manual, if you want some light reading. It took the last guy 18 months to work his way through to get his certificate.
http://www.dft.gov.uk/vosa/repository/MSVA 2010 .pdf
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It's still a user modification necessary to make a (far more powerful and potentially dangerous) vehicle road legal though and no coyness surrounds KTM's willingness to supply same to the UK market - I think that was the point SRS was making.
It all sounds like a load of made up arguments to support a particular political / commercial agenda. There's nothing come out yet to convincingly suggest otherwise.
It all sounds like a load of made up arguments to support a particular political / commercial agenda. There's nothing come out yet to convincingly suggest otherwise.
The difference it the KTM is sold and advertised as "for of road use" its not hidden away in the small print or some obscure mention of type approval.
And would love to know what my particular political / commercial agenda is meant to be ?
A very big difference. The KTM you mention was designed as a motor vehicle. The S class bikes are not designed as either pedelecs or motor vehicles, they were designed expressly to suit an intermediary class of registered pedal e-bike that legally exists within the EU only in Germany. They cannot easily meet motor vehicle standards for legal use in the UK and were never intended to.
As it's an EU recognised class of vehicle, we could have the S class in Britain if our government was willing to enact the necessary regulations, but they have said that they are unwilling to do that. That is the clearest possible indication from government that these S class e-bikes should not be used on UK roads. Their position isn't unreasonable when it's considered that it's shared by all the other 25 EU countries outside of Germany.
I see no difference. Call it what you want, at the end of the day you sit on it and it moves you along the road. One with a little pedal assistance but the net result is the same, you get somewhere with motorised assistance.
A lot of people on this forum insist that an S Class is in fact a moped. I disagree but if it makes it easier, let all agree that it is in fact a moped.
Right, its now a moped!! Insure, tax and ride the thing and stop going round in circles.
Every ones happy and nobody is going to get their ass sued. Dead pedestrians run over and killed by these new machines will be compensated and all is well.
As for your mention of the government, what government?
So something designed to meet strict criteria to be classed as a certain type of vehicle is the same as something which is designed to meet a set of criteria that is not currently allowed in UK ?
A 'S' class is not a moped however it is not a ebike and the next category it fits into under current UK law is as a moped. So its not a matter of its a moped more that to legally use it you would need to try and get registered as one, although as its not designed as one that is not just a matter of getting it registered. (Even though type approved it is not type approved as a moped).
As for Insuring,Taxing etc that is just the point. Not one single owner would appear to of done this based on statistics from DVLA. So they are riding around on them on the basis of "it wont happen to me".
On this basis it seems reasonable to me that any one selling them should make it perfectly clear in advertising etc that they are not road legal with out registering (if possible) in the UK. Just saying oh we tell all potential customers this verbally when they ask to buy is just not good enough (and pretty hard to prove in a court of law). Again experience says that if anything does go wrong and **** hits the fan then the buyer will try and firmly lay the blame on the supplier claiming they were not informed of the law and the seller will have no definitive evidence to prove otherwise.
I think that this has been done to death and we all agree that S class bikes can't be used legally on UK roads, cycle paths or anywhere else where the public have access. There is a way around this, but it's complicated, expensive and most likely something that the average Ebike owner would not want to become involved it.
Whether you choose to buy one, and risk, it is a personal decision. There will be those who decide that ilegal S class ownership is for them, and there will be those who are more comfortable owning something which conforms to UK legislation. What is entirely unacceptable is to pass an ilegal machine off as legal and to then allow someone to unwittingly break the law. Regardless of whether the seller has any legal responsibility to make the buyer aware that the bike is ilegal on UK roads, they should do as a matter of honesty and integrity.
Now the question is, are 50 Cycles making their customers aware that an S class bike, purchased from them, can not be legally used on UK roads? If so, they have nothing to be ashamed of and I can see nothing wrong in what they do. If they are withholding that information, then that is a shameful way to conduct business and they deserve to earn a bad reputation. I don't know which of the two they practice and wouldn't like to hazard a guess.
Whether you choose to buy one, and risk, it is a personal decision. There will be those who decide that ilegal S class ownership is for them, and there will be those who are more comfortable owning something which conforms to UK legislation. What is entirely unacceptable is to pass an ilegal machine off as legal and to then allow someone to unwittingly break the law. Regardless of whether the seller has any legal responsibility to make the buyer aware that the bike is ilegal on UK roads, they should do as a matter of honesty and integrity.
Now the question is, are 50 Cycles making their customers aware that an S class bike, purchased from them, can not be legally used on UK roads? If so, they have nothing to be ashamed of and I can see nothing wrong in what they do. If they are withholding that information, then that is a shameful way to conduct business and they deserve to earn a bad reputation. I don't know which of the two they practice and wouldn't like to hazard a guess.
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Here's a transcript of a typical conversation
And another:
And another
These are transcripts from chats in December, March and April, we say the same over the phone and in person. Nobody is sold or buys one of these bikes without understanding the situation. As far as we know all of these enquiries were from the UK. We do export quite a few too.
| Aaron: | Hi, how can I help? | 03:11 |
| United Kingdom (Norwich) #227: | I want some advice on buying a kalkhoff | 03:12 |
| Aaron: | sure, no problem. | 03:12 |
| United Kingdom (Norwich) #8060: | there's lots to choose from so I'm not sure what will fit my needs | 03:12 |
| United Kingdom (Norwich) #2082: | Wots the fastest and longest distance model? | 03:13 |
| United Kingdom (Norwich) #7610: | think I'll want as much battery life as possible | 03:13 |
| United Kingdom (Norwich) #895: | oh I should mentoin that I don't want the step thru womens bikes either but I don't want the long reach in a men's size too :/ | 03:15 |
| United Kingdom (Norwich) #9366: | top tube length could be a problem?! | 03:16 |
| Aaron: | The fastest would be the Endeavour BS10 which gives assistance up to 28mph, although this bike is classed as a small motorbike and would need to be registered as such -Kalkhoff Endeavour BS10 XT 50cm |
And another:
| Alan (email): | The Endeavour BS10 400Wh looks nice, but not legal in the UK, so wont take that chance. | 02:20 |
| Alan (): | THe link for the sahel does not work. | 02:20 |
| Alan (): | My next e-bile will need centre motor, proper gears, 55" frame and a crossbar. I can't see anything at the moment that fits this. | 02:22 |
| Aaron: | The BS10 can be made legal, it has been type approved and comes with a certificate of conformity, you would need to register it with the DVLA as an L1E vehicle. |
And another
| Hi, how can I help? | 10:12 | |
| Derrick (): | I am cyclist of too many years to contemplate. I ride regularly with a group of road cyclist and 4500 annual miles (ex road racing). I am looking for a sporty road bike not too different from our normal road machines. Age is taking its toll and I need assistance to stay with my friends or ride solo at a lower level. What have you on offer that can do 50mls or so with my own assistance. | 10:18 |
| Aaron: | ok, well any of the Kalkhoff Impulse range will do 50 miles on a charge, we get regular reports of 60 miles. They are pure pedal assist crank drive bikes, you ride them just like a normal bike and the motor assists your pedal power, they have 3 levels of assist to choose from depending on how much help you need. The first one i would recommend is the Agattu C8 Impulse HS -http://www.50cycles.com/electric-bikes/bargain-2012-clearance/kalkhoff_agattu_c8_impulse_hs | 10:22 |
| Aaron: | For a more sporty bike we have the Endeavour BS10which has a more powerful motor and will assist up to 28mph, because of its speed it is classed as a small moped so needs to be registered with the DVLA to legally ride on public roads - Kalkhoff Endeavour BS10 XT 50cm | 10:23 |
| Aaron: | The Agattu is classed as a normal bicycle so no need to register that one. | 10:24 |
| Derrick (): | Many thanks, I will have a look at that. Regards Derrick | 10:26 |
| Aaron: | Hi, how can I help? | 10:47 |
| Alec (): | How can you sell the pro Connect 10 when the legal speed limit id 15mph for electric bikes. | 10:48 |
| Aaron: | The Pro Connect is classed as an L1e vehicle (small moped) and is type approved. It comes with the paperwork needed to register with the DVLA. To legally ride these bikes on the road it needs to be registered, taxed and insured. | 10:50 |
| Aaron: | It is a one off fee of £50 to register, tax is free as it is an electric vehicle but you would need insurance. | 10:51 |
| Alec (): | Could the motor be set to cut off at 15mph the same as tghe Bosch 250 watt motor on the Scott Venture 30 bike ? | 10:53 |
| Aaron: | No, there are 2 types of Bosch motor, the 250w and the 350w. The 250 cuts out at 15mph and the 350 cuts out at 28mph. The cut off speed cant be changed. Even if it could it would make no difference as the motor is over the allowed wattage of 250. | 10:55 |
| Alec (): | Thank you for the information |
These are transcripts from chats in December, March and April, we say the same over the phone and in person. Nobody is sold or buys one of these bikes without understanding the situation. As far as we know all of these enquiries were from the UK. We do export quite a few too.
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I agree, the dealer should clearly advertise these cycles with all the facts.
I can also see why there have been no DVLA registrations. People would register if it were made possible but is seems that it would be next to impossible.
So the upshot is, if you would like one to use on UK roads, you are forced to ride it illegally.
I'm not sure where the logic is in that but then I am not going to buy one so makes no odds to me personally.
No more harm could be done than by any other form of motorised transport so I see no reason for this ridiculous situation.
I can also see why there have been no DVLA registrations. People would register if it were made possible but is seems that it would be next to impossible.
So the upshot is, if you would like one to use on UK roads, you are forced to ride it illegally.
I'm not sure where the logic is in that but then I am not going to buy one so makes no odds to me personally.
No more harm could be done than by any other form of motorised transport so I see no reason for this ridiculous situation.
Tim
Yes it could
Firstly why dont you say anything on your web site other then the Endeavour BS10 is type approved as a L1E moped ?
Secondly as the L1E is not a recognised type approval in the UK (and most of EU except Germany) its completely meaningless as its not possible to register a L1E with DVLA.
So you are still not really stating all the true facts.
Also as you claim you inform all potential buyers (and im willing to accept this), I just don't understand why you fail to mention this anywhere on your web pages ?.
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