Proposed California law seeks to create new Sur Ron style e-bike category for legal status
California is set to shake up how out-of-class electric two-wheelers are regulated, as a newly proposed bill, SB 586, aims to clarify the status of electric bikes without pedals, officially dubbing them “eMotos” and classifying them as off-highway vehicles.
The new bill, introduced by Senator Brian Jones, tackles the confusing gray area surrounding pedal-less electric bicycles, which currently skate between classifications of bicycles, scooters, and motorcycles.
These types of electric two-wheelers are often referred to as Sur Ron-style bikes due to the popularity of Sur Ron motorbikes that launched the infamous format. In addition to Sur Ron, similar models can be found from manufacturers such as Talaria, E Ride Pro, Segway, and others. They are generally smaller than typical motorcycles or dirt bikes, often weighing around 100 to 140 lb (45-65 kg) and usually reaching top speeds of between 40-55 mph (65-80 km/h). Despite looking somewhat similar to conventional electric bicycles due to the use of like-sized frames, they lack pedals and function more like light dirt bikes.
Other than the catch-all term “Sur Ron-style” bikes, there hasn’t been a good name for this rapidly growing unofficial class of two-wheeler, at least not until now. Under SB 586, a new class of “eMotos” is explicitly defined as including electric two-wheeled vehicles built on “bicycle frames” but lacking pedals and traditional engine identification numbers, and not requiring traditional vehicle registration.
Instead, the new bill would have these “eMotos” regulated like other off-road vehicles, such as dirt bikes and ATVs, requiring them to have an official identification plate issued by California’s DMV.
If the bill passes, riders would need to follow established off-highway vehicle regulations, which include mandatory helmet use and restrictions on where these vehicles can be operated. The legislation also mandates the California Highway Patrol (CHP) and local law enforcement to create educational programs to promote the safe and compliant use of these vehicles in off-road areas.
California’s Division of Off-Highway Motor Vehicle Recreation would collaborate with the CHP to develop comprehensive guidelines for using eMotos in designated state recreation zones, ensuring users understand their responsibilities and legal boundaries.
This would bring these Sur Ron-style e-bikes into the fold with a new legal classification, however they would still not be permitted on public roadways. Instead, their Off-Highway Vehicle classification would allow them to be legally used on public off-road trails, which is one of the main applications they were originally designed for – at least until they fell into favor with you riders who now use them largely for illegal street riding.
This legislative move addresses growing concerns around safety and enforcement difficulties caused by the current ambiguous classification of pedal-less electric two-wheelers like these, which aren’t designed to operate as street-legal electric motorcycles despite exceeding electric bicycle regulatory limits.
By explicitly categorizing eMotos as off-highway vehicles, California aims to eliminate confusion, enhance rider safety, and streamline law enforcement efforts in managing the booming popularity of electric mobility solutions.
Electrek’s Take
I largely agree with this move to create a legal classification for these bikes, even if the term “eMotos” isn’t a great choice. These pedal-less electric motorbikes were never designed with urban streets in mind. Most were built for fire roads, dirt paths, and off-road exploration – places where speed, power, and the lack of pedals make more sense and pose fewer safety concerns. By classifying them as off-highway vehicles, California is making it clear how and where these machines should be ridden, and that clarity is long overdue. This could also help prevent misuse on public streets and sidewalks, which has become a growing concern in many cities.
For folks who really want to ride these types of vehicles on the streets and treat them like mini-motorcycles, there are already street-legal versions like the NIU XQi3 that have jumped through all the regulatory hoops to design them for street-legal riding in North America. But for almost all the other ones out there, they just aren’t designed for road use and so that’s not where they should be.
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Elon Musk went on an all-day Tesla self-driving propaganda spree ahead of the company’s earnings, which are expected to be rough.
It’s well known these days that Musk doesn’t often comment on Tesla as he is busy with his government work, buying elections, and running several private companies.
Some Tesla shareholders argue that the CEO is neglecting the public company, which saw its stock tumble this year.
That wasn’t the case today.
Musk went on a tweeting spree about Tesla, specifically about Tesla’s self-driving effort.
Here are some of the highlights:
Tesla posted that “one day” its vehicles will drive themselves from the factory to new customers and Musk couldn’t stop himself and had to say that it will happen “this year”:
Like most of Musk’s self-driving comments, this one is hard to take seriously since he said the exact same thing in 2018 and claimed it would happen in 2019.
The tweet he was responding to has been deleted by the author, but it asked when Tesla vehicles would drive themselves to customers:
Spoiler alert: regulators are not the bottleneck here.
Musk then claimed that “Tesla self-driving will be far safer than human driving”:
The problem here is that Musk has claimed on many occasions that Tesla’s FSD is already safer than humans, like in 2023: “Supervised FSD is vastly safer than human driving.”
There’s no data that supports that. Tesla refuses to share any data regarding its self-driving program and instead, the company shares a very misleading quarterly “safety report.”
Considering Tesla’s FSD requires supervision from a driver at all times, the driver’s supervision and attention help reduce accidents that the self-driving system wouldn’t necessarily prevent.
Musk also shared positive experiences of a few Tesla owners, including a Tesla engineer and Joe Rogan:
As we often highlight, Tesla’s FSD can be impressive to use, but the problem is when you compare it to its promise, which is in the name: full self-driving.
Under its current form, FSD is still a level 2 advanced driver assist system, and not self-driving, but Musk said that it would become truly “unsupervised” self-driving every year for the last 8 years.
Therefore, it’s not what Musk has been promising buyers for years and as for when it is coming, he has been consistently wrong and has asked owners to rely on anecdotal experiences as Tesla refuses to release any data.
We previously reported that Musk has twice positively referred to a crowdsourced Tesla FSD dataset that shows Tesla’s FSD v13 on HW4 is achieving fewer than 500 miles between critical disengagements.
Tesla has previously stated that FSD must achieve 700,000 miles between critical disengagements to be safer than humans.
The spree of Tesla FSD tweets comes as Tesla is preparing to report its Q1 2025 earnings next week, which should be difficult after the automaker reported its lowest delivery results in three years.
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Texas is No. 1 in the US for wind and solar capacity, but the Texas Senate just passed a bill that aims to kneecap clean energy with an industry-killing review process. Will the Texas House pass it, too?
The Texas Senate today passed SB 819, which creates new restrictions on the development of wind and solar energy under the guise of “protecting” wildlife. The restrictions don’t apply to any other forms of energy.
Texas uses an extraordinary amount of power, and renewables play a big part in supplying that power. The Texas Tribune reported in March that “ERCOT [the Texas grid] predicts that Texas’ energy demand will nearly double by 2030, with power supply projected to fall short of peak demand in a worst-case scenario beginning in summer 2026.” That’s because of extreme weather, population growth, and crypto-mining facilities.
As of February, Texas increased its energy supply by 35% over the last four years, and 92% of that supply came from solar, wind, and battery storage.
Solar is the largest source of energy generating capacity that has been added to the Texas grid. That’s because it’s cost-effective and it can be deployed quickly. So if new solar projects are kneecapped, power demand will outstrip supply in the Lone Star State.
Daniel Giese, Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA)’s Texas director of state affairs, stated after the Senate’s vote, “With energy demand rising fast, Texas needs every megawatt it can generate to keep the lights on and our economy strong. We cannot afford to turn away from the pro-energy and pro-business policies that made the Lone Star State the energy capital, but that’s exactly what SB 819 does. We urge the Texas House to reject this bill.”
Less clean energy would also jack up electricity bills for Texans, and rural areas would lose billions in landowner revenue and tax payments. Every time a wind farm or solar farm is installed on rural land, it brings a lot of money to the community that surrounds it. A January report estimated that existing and planned solar, wind, and battery storage projects will contribute $20 billion in local tax revenue and $29.5 billion in landowner payments.
What’s especially baffling about this bill is that it flies in the face of a core Texas value – keeping the government out of private property decisions – yet it does precisely the opposite.
Environment Texas executive director Luke Metzger issued the following response: ‘By making it much more difficult to build wind and solar energy in Texas, this bill threatens to increase pollution, increase blackouts and increase our electric bills.
“Under the guise of helping land and wildlife, SB 819 would create a discriminatory and capricious permitting standard that could grind renewable energy development to a halt.
“We urge the House of Representatives to reject this bill and instead support policies that promote a cleaner, more sustainable energy future for all Texans.”
It will come as no surprise to regular readers that I find this bill ludicrously masochistic. Let me know your thoughts in the comments below, and please keep it civil.
Read more: A vast 600 MW Texas solar farm just hit a major milestone [update]
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