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New York City law is fairly specific about what’s allowed on its streets. E-bikes are capped at 750 watts and 25 mph. Electric scooters can go up to 20 mph and weigh no more than 100 pounds. Mopeds have to display a VIN.

This week, Mayor Zohran Mamdani announced that the city will take legal action against retailers selling motorized devices that exceed those limits. Notices went out to more than 40 online retailers, including Amazon, Temu, Target, and Walmart, instructing them to stop selling non-compliant devices to NYC residents. Retailers that ignore the notice face fines of up to $2,000 per sale. Owners of illegal vehicles can also have them impounded.

In his statement, Mamdani said the city is putting online retailers on notice and will use every tool available to make streets safer for people who walk, bike, drive, or ride. He added that the promise of getting home safely gets harder to keep when companies profit from knowingly selling illegal, high-speed vehicles.

The numbers behind the action come from the Mayor’s Office. Between 2017 and 2025, 45 deaths involved illegal e-bikes, accounting for 54% of e-bike-related fatalities in that window. Another 14 deaths involved illegal electric scooters, or 52% of scooter-related deaths over the same period.

Amazon has already responded, saying it will work with the Mayor’s Office on the issue. A company spokesperson said safety is a top priority and that e-bikes sold on the platform are required to meet applicable safety standards and Amazon policies.

Our Take:

We’ve watched a number of states crack down on high-speed electric motorcycles and similar devices this year, so it isn’t surprising to see a city the size of New York do the same thing.

On balance, this is a good move. But it’s only part of the equation. Keeping high-speed e-motos out of the sales channel doesn’t do much if riders don’t understand the rules or choose to ignore them. Getting people to ride responsibly starts with education, and that piece still isn’t getting the attention it deserves.

Trek threw a party this week to mark 50 years in the bike business. The company was founded in 1976 in a barn in Waterloo, Wisconsin, and built 904 frames in its first year.

Half a century later, Trek is one of the largest and most storied brands in cycling. Along the way it has produced some genuinely important bikes and played a real part in pushing infrastructure and access forward.

One of those bikes was the 1999 ElecTrek. It weighed 55 pounds, ran a Yamaha PAS system, and had a 20-mile range.

Our Take:

Looking at the ElecTrek is a good reminder of how far this category has come. Today’s e-bikes are almost unrecognizable next to it, but bikes like that one are where all of this started.

Congrats to Trek. Here’s to 50 more years.

For the last 11 years, lithium-ion batteries have been exempt from China’s consumption tax. That’s ending. The Chinese Ministry of Finance, the General Administration of Customs, and the State Taxation Administration have announced a 2% tax on lithium-ion batteries beginning in September of this year, rising to 4% in September of 2027.

The move is intended to push manufacturers toward newer, cleaner technologies. Sodium-ion and solid-state batteries will now be exempt from the tax instead.

E-bikes still run almost entirely on lithium-ion, so the industry will likely see small price increases in the near future. Solid-state batteries have been teased for e-bikes for a while, but progress has been slow. Ride1Up has an upcoming model with a semi-solid-state battery, and that’s about as far as production bikes have gotten.

Sodium-ion isn’t a quick fix either. Sodium-ion packs currently have to be larger and heavier than lithium-ion packs of the same capacity, so a big shift toward that chemistry isn’t likely soon, even though sodium batteries are non-combustible and cheaper to produce.

Our Take:

These costs land on top of the tariff-related price increases the industry has absorbed over the past few years, which is the part that stings.

We’d like to see solid-state technology take off, and raising the price of current tech to get there is unfortunate for buyers right now. Still, it will be interesting to watch whether other forms of support for solid-state batteries follow.

This one is related to the cease-and-desist story above, but it’s a separate effort. The New York City Council has 17 proposals on the table. Among them are plans to ban the sale of Class 3 bikes, require delivery companies to obtain commercial licenses and carry additional insurance, and draw a legal line between e-bikes and e-motos and similar devices.

There is no proposal to require e-bike registration.

The Council says it’s aiming to place responsibility on delivery platforms like Grubhub and DoorDash rather than on the individuals working for them. Many of the bills are built around separating e-bikes from other e-mobility options.

The Council announced this week that it will hold a hearing on September 30th to examine e-bike and e-scooter safety, discuss potential legislative action, and review how the city is enforcing existing laws. Testimony will come from city agencies, transportation and public safety experts, advocates, workers, and members of the public.

Our Take:

Clear definitions separating e-bikes from e-motos are the key piece here, and getting that right would be a positive development.

Beyond that, we have to wait and see what the Council decides. There are a lot of topics in play, and it’s tough to call what actually lands.

We’re glad a registration requirement isn’t among them. As New York City works through this, we’d like to see the city stick with the existing three-class system that most of the country has adopted. Standardization across all 50 states would be ideal for the industry, which is, again, why we keep asking for regulation at the federal level.

We covered this model’s European release back in October 2025. It’s now available in both the US and Canada, and we have more details to share.

Urban Arrow is a premium brand best known for its front-loading cargo e-bikes. The Breeze is meant to be more compact and maneuverable, with a setup that suburban riders here will find easier to live with.

Mark Danhof, General Manager of Urban Arrow North America, noted that longtails make up the majority of the North American e-cargo market, and said the company is bringing its family cargo bike experience into that segment for riders who value safety, durability, and long-term reliability.

The spec sheet is strong. The Breeze rolls on 24″ wheels and runs a Bosch Cargo Line mid-drive, which Bosch lists at 750W peak and 120 Nm of torque. Shifting is handled by an Enviolo CVT paired with a Gates Carbon belt, so maintenance stays low. The step-thru frame is rated for a 440-pound payload with up to 176 pounds on the cargo rack, and both the front and rear racks are MIK-HD compatible.

It also comes with spoke and belt guards, a front lock, and storage for a chain lock. Pricing is $6,999, and a limited-time promotion adds cargo and passenger accessories including footrests, seat cushions, a handrail, and a front rack, a package valued at $700.

Our Take:

The components and the price put this squarely in premium territory, so the Breeze is going to appeal to a fairly niche audience.

For the riders in that group, though, there’s a reason Urban Arrow sits alongside Tern as a gold standard in this category. We’d love to put one through our testing, so if anyone at Urban Arrow is watching, send it our way.

• Is the Tern HSD P10E worth its price when you could buy more than two Lectric XPedition 2 cargo bikes for the same money?
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Lectric founders Levi Conlow and Robby Deziel, the company’s CEO and CINO, recently shared two milestones on social media. On the same day, Lectric crossed $1 billion in sales through Shopify and passed 750,000 e-bikes sold.

Shopify is the platform Lectric uses for its direct-to-consumer sales, so those numbers don’t include units moved through Best Buy or other retail channels. The real totals are higher.

The company launched in 2019 and sold over 100,000 bikes in its first two years. Conlow and Deziel landed on Forbes’ 30 Under 30 list in 2021. Lectric now owns both Juiced and Monarc.

Our Take:

These numbers are why Lectric is America’s number one selling e-bike brand. The bikes are designed for fun, and people genuinely enjoy riding them, which is a harder thing to pull off than spec sheets suggest.

The company also backs up its products. John’s dad recently told him about a neighbor whose bikes stopped working after riding through rain. The warranty had already expired. Lectric sent new batteries and controllers anyway. We’ve heard plenty of similar stories over the years, and that kind of thing sticks with customers far longer than a good launch price.

Congratulations to Levi and Robby. With Juiced and Monarc now under the same roof, we hope they find the same success with those brands that they’ve had with Lectric.

Scott’s new city lineup is built around a single model called the Sweep, offered in two spec tiers. The Sweep 10 is a slim, sporty, lightweight rigid-frame city bike. The Sweep 20 is a slightly more robust commuter with suspension, and it comes in both a high-step frame and a step-thru version called the Wave.

All three bikes use Bosch’s 250W Hub Line rear-hub motor with 400W of peak power and 45 Nm of torque, paired with a removable 360 Wh PowerTube battery. They share a 9-speed Shimano CUES drivetrain, Shimano MT200 hydraulic disc brakes, integrated lights and fenders, and a 15.5 mph top speed that makes them clearly primed for the EU market.

The Sweep 10 keeps things simple with side hangers for panniers and a non-adjustable stem with flat bars. The Sweep 20 adds a full cargo rack, an adjustable stem with an SP Connect mount, Schwalbe Energizer Active Plus tires, and an SR Suntour NEX coil fork. Handlebars differ by frame: the high-step gets ergonomically swept-back bars, while the step-thru Wave gets Dutch-style cruiser bars.

Our Take:

We don’t have pricing information yet, which makes it hard to say how these stack up against the rest of the European city bike market. What we can say is that the whole lineup looks intriguing. Scott built three genuinely different riding positions off one platform instead of forcing every rider onto the same bike, and the Bosch drive system and CUES drivetrain are a sensible foundation for daily commuting.

Mondraker is calling the new Dusty an “all-round” e-bike, and says it doesn’t care about labels. In practice, that means a category-bender you could take commuting one day and onto gravel the next.

There are four versions, and all of them use a carbon frame and a TQ HPR 60 mid-drive motor with 350W of power and 60 Nm of torque, fed by a 580 Wh battery. The bikes roll on 700x50c tires with clearance up to 50mm. Both Class 1 and Class 3 capability are built in, though unlocking Class 3 speeds requires contacting Mondraker with your bike’s serial number.

Buyers can choose between drop bar and flat bar configurations, and the flat bar version also comes with a dropper post. Pricing starts at $7,999 for the entry-level model and climbs to $11,499 for the RR.

Our Take:

The move from a rear-hub motor on the original Dusty to a mid-drive here is the story. Gravel riders tend to care a lot about a natural pedal feel, and Mondraker leans into that in its own messaging. This is an upgrade.

We also like that the flat bar option exists, and that it comes with a dropper. Plenty of riders want gravel capability without committing to drop bars, and this splits the difference nicely. The Class 3 unlock process is a bit of a hassle, and these prices put the Dusty well out of reach for most riders, but the bike itself makes sense.

A bit of recent history first. Kona’s original founders reacquired the brand in 2024 after selling it in 2021, and their statement at the time was refreshingly blunt. They said they’d expected the brand to keep growing without them, admitted that recent history proved us wrong, and described the team that stayed as smaller but stronger.

Now the El Kahuna is here. It’s a versatile SUV-style e-bike running a Bosch Performance Line motor and a 625 Wh battery on 29-inch wheels. The build includes a 100mm RockShox Recon Gold fork, a TranzX dropper post, Tektro Gemini brakes, a 10-speed microSHIFT Advent drivetrain, and a rear rack. It sells for $3,499.

Our Take:

We loved the attitude in that 2024 statement, and it’s good to see the follow-through. The El Kahuna covers all the usual SUV-style territory: commuting, grocery runs, campground cruising, and gravel. A dropper post and a Bosch Performance Line motor at $3,499 is a reasonable ask for a bike meant to do that many jobs.

• Is the Velotric Summit 2 worth over $2,000 when mid-drive e-bikes like the Ride1Up TrailRush cost less?
• Did Avinox release its powerful new motors to help heavier and disabled riders, or to grab market share?
• How does riding a rear-hub motor differ from riding a mid-drive?