Those bikes just rig the speed limiter

Yeah, it’s a huge problem in Australia. Mostly they have an unlock code in the electronic controller that lets you simply over-ride the speed limit. Some stores sell it already over-ridden, or just tell you how to do it.

But the other side of things is that Australia is a heavily car focused country, and whether they’re speed limited or not, whether they’re driven dangerously or not, they’re still far less lethal than cars, far less polluting than cars and far less wasteful than cars.

Making ebikes unappealing to people will just ensure none of that changes.

And the European standards are probably relevant in Europe, but they’re too conservative to increase ebike uptake here in Australia (or at least in Queensland, where I live). My state alone is 40 times the size of the Netherlands. And the city I live in has a comparable population to Amsterdam, but it’s spread over an area 6 times the physical size, with hills and a subtropical environment. We actually have pretty good cycling infrastructure as far as Australian cities go, but it’s nothing like what you have. So lots of our trips either need to be on the road, or on the footpath, and a 250W bike with a load going up a hill just isn’t safe on the road…