BMW’s e-bike concepts are motorcycles outside the city, bicycles within

BMW’s two concept e-bikes envision geofencing to limit speeds inside cities. | Image: BMW

BMW recently showed off not one, but two e-bike concepts. The announcements are sprinkled with tons of gee-whiz claims that are easy to make when something only lives on paper, not roads. But one idea stood out to me as a real solution: the use of geofencing to limit fast e-bike speeds inside congested cities. Especially since BMW already has a working geofencing solution deployed around Europe.

In Europe at least, fast e-bikes known as speed-pedelecs (or Class 3 e-bikes in the US) are capable of going 45km/h (28mph), just like BMW’s new concept bikes, the BMW i Vision AMBY and BMW Motorrad Vision AMBY.

BMW sees the i Vision as a pedal-assisted e-bike fitted with a massive 2,000Wh battery that’s “fast charging,” naturally, for a range...