Just recently had a conference call with the CPSC on a petition I filed that requested a preemption of the 3-class state regulations. They clarified why they viewed that there was no conflict so preemption was not necessary (ie no interestate commerce or product definition conflicts - LSEB vs 3-class). This is going to surprise a lot of people, the ebike industry, and even state regulators but the CPSC counsel stated that an LSEB as defined in HR727 and regulated by 1512 is viewed as the product equivalent of a tradition bicycle. Thus an LSEB can be ridden as a bicycle in all 50 states but this also allows "classified" ebikes to regulated differently. I explained to the CPSC that this "opinion" would eventually lead to legal conflicts but they essentially feel that is the way a final regulatory standard needs to be established.
Note: If you consider that all LSEB compliant ebikes sold in the US prior to the state 3-class legislation were not classified but were LSEB compliant it makes sense. The states were allowed to ignore the necessary grandfather of existing legal products for use by creating a standard that is actually voluntary by the industry to follow as all 3-classes are indeed compliant to the federal LSEB definition. If the industry is paying attention they will soon realize that a better product would be to ignore the classes and ship only LSEB compliant class ebikes to all 50 states - they must be regulated as a bike because federally defined as such.
If anyone questions that I'm correct on this please review what happened to all the non-classed LSEBs produced, sold, and were in use in all the states prior to 3-class legislation was adopted. Did all those ebikes just overnight become illegal to ride in those states. Historically products are grandfathered when new legislation is adopted but that didn't happen. Why? Because these LSEBs are still legal to ride as a bike and this dates back to HR727 in 2002.
