Add to that the wife now thinks it's hilarious a foreigner nearly dropped me after me moaning for nearly 3 years about the chinese on their mopeds.

It's the latest friend/family joke lol

not sure if bicycle is the healthy option, specially during the peak time. When Im coming back home after 7pm, the passing by trucks really make me consider to buy one diandongche. I dont have to breathe so hard like during the cycling and can wear the mask, coz no sweating.

Problem is that 48-60V is not a solution for me, I live behind 2nd ring and travel quite a lot in town as well. I do it all now on almost 40y old bike ( coz new one got stolen after 1 months being in KM ) .
I wonder, how far it can go with the regulations? Can they completely ban e-bikes like in Shenzhen few years ago? U can still see them in some areas there, evening dindongche taxi etc., but they really did big "clean up" that time. I wonder how that would be here, if possible? In my understanding of KM, after seeing street vendors on 文化巷 (near Sals) covering their stuff with blanket ( We dont sell anything, just have a table here with white blanket over ) each time the cops pass by, is that certain things can be "overlooked" in certain conditions. Now I wonder if Im going to be ignored by driving 72V bike and carrying my gf to work in the morning:-)

they tend to have favoured spots where there is space for a lot of ebikes to stop safely. If you can work out a route to avoid those spots at danger times (during the day excluding meal-times), you should be okay.

They also tend to have periodic purges on one thing. Then they concentrate on something different.

@Alexez: I wouldn't worry too much. It's not a daily appearance that they fine for this... they probably needed some money. ;) My chinese colleague said, maybe they were fake-cops... but almost 20 guys on each side of the intersection with police-cars? C'mon! Colleague is riding a 80V bike, showed me his bike card (including the small plate on the bike) which means it got registrated with the Public vehicle and transportation guys which means it's legal to ride it. My old e-scooter bought in 2009 i got also registrated with plate (80V with a big sticker in front stating exactly that!) under my normal name. However, with the new bike they refused to issue the plate, but not because it's illegal... they just couldn't get their computersystem to swallow non-chinese characters. :)
In 2011 or 2012 i guess, there was big news that all e-bikes have to be registrated or else you couldn't drive. That news made the registration places nearly collapse with loads of people lining up in front waiting for the plate. So, not long after that they scratched the idea and since then you can carry your receipt for the bike and it should be fine.
If they really would ban all the bikes above 48V today, it will produce some big kind of public uproar i guess.

@tigertiger: Roger that! Maybe their boss got some ass-kicking from another official, so they had to do something real quick. ;)

@lemon lover: I agree with you about the safety question, there should be some traffic-education before you can ride. But traffic-education is nearly non-existence here, should be start in school! That a 72V scooter is faster than a 48V is completely bollocks. For example, a 48V one with a 500-700W machinery and let's say 45-50Ah instead of the standard 20Ah will go much faster and might even go further than a 72V 20Ah with 350W machinery. If you so worried about lethal e-shocks, i think China might not be the right place for you. ;)

baike.baidu.com/[...]

Lets see what the LAW has to say about this topic. These regs are from 2013 which I believe to be outdated as well as there is no mention of 72V Ebikes. Only mentions 48V and 64V.

This is a great topic to address with 12345 - the Mayors Hotline to get a clear answer as to what is legal and illegal. If anything, complaints will at least force them to update the regulations.

@Cromson

Cool down man.
Of course the speed depends on the Wattage of the engine. In general 72 Volt models are however designed to go faster instead of extended range. What you are saying is that a QQ with a 5 litres engine is faster than a Ferrari with 50CC two stroke. Yes it will be but they don't exist.

I personally think that whatever the regulation is nobody cares about. The police have a nice milk cow this way to milk once in a while.

I personally am not afraid of high voltages but I can understand that the regulators here are, thus like to stick to the safer 48V.
PS. lived in countries with far worse electric systems than China. The materials used here are much better than the stuff they ship to Africa. There I had extension wires that said 2000W but contained so little wire inside the foamed up insulation that I hardly dared to charge a phone on it.

@HFCAMPO: What you linked to is a baike article on the national law, but it says nothing about Kunming.

Here is a source I found about new regulations making their way through the rounds in Kunming: news.adxlq.com/m/dfzx/5251.html

It states that e-bikes in Kunming cannot exceed 60kg, must have a max speed of no more than 15km/h, and must not exceed 48V.

The new law is called 昆明市电动自行车管理条例.

Most sites seem to have the old version from 2012. There are news stories from earlier in the year that the new law was being investigated for possible passage at the latest congress, but no news if it passed (it probably did, hence this thread).

Also, just because it's interesting, a lot of news stories say there are more than one million e-bikes in Kunming.