Amazon is fuelling the illegal e-bikes menace by selling Chinese conversion kits for under £500 that turn regular bicycles into souped-up machines.
The online retailer is offering upgrades that allow riders to travel at several times the speed limit for an e-bike, The Mail on Sunday’s investigation has found.
Our reporter transformed a second-hand pedal bike into an illegal e-bike after buying a conversion kit from Amazon for under £500.
These kits are not illegal to sell in Britain. But there are growing calls for a ban on sales amid a rise in accidents and muggings involving rogue e-bike riders.
Under UK law, e-bikes must have electric motors limited to a maximum power output of 250 watts and must stop providing power at 15.5mph.
Anything above that is classified as a moped or motorbike and must be registered, taxed and insured.
However, many e-bikes are being modified to travel at frightening speeds.
This can be done by cranking up previously compliant electric bikes or converting pedal bikes into motorised ones.
The second-hand bicycle that the Mail transformed into an illegal e-bike using a Chinese conversion kit bought on Amazon
The underside of the motor shows it has a power of 500 watts, twice the legal limit for e-bikes
The MoS found it was astonishingly easy to find kits online that would boost bikes well beyond the legal limit.
Amazon offers a range of conversion kits, including some with 2,000 watt motors capable of speeds of up to 40mph.
We ordered a package containing a 500-watt Chinese-made motor, a battery and other parts for just under £500. The kit arrived in days. We then paid a bike shop in South-east London £200 to install it on a second-hand pedal bike.
The motor helps create speeds of more than 25mph but we could easily have bought one far more powerful. We found a specialist retailer selling a 5,000 watt e-bike conversion kit for £1,327.
A simple Google search also revealed websites selling ‘speed derestriction dongles’ for up to £299.
One product claimed it would ‘suppress the speed limiter’ so that riders could travel at ‘unlimited speed’.
Police forces nationwide have been grappling with a surge in illegal e-bikes. Seizures rose 83 per cent, from 3,858 to 7,049, in the 12 months to May 19.
They have been described by MPs as the ‘perfect accessory to phone theft, mugging and drug dealing’, with gangs increasingly using them to target victims.
The Metropolitan Police arrested 187 thieves and seized 157 e-bikes, mopeds and other vehicles in an operation targeting e-bike muggers this year.
The machines have also caused a spate of accidents, including the death of grandmother Gloria Stephenson, 86, who was struck and killed by a teenager riding an illegal e-bike on a zebra crossing in Sunderland last year.
Gloria Stephenson, 86, was struck and killed by a teenager riding an illegal e-bike on a zebra crossing in Sunderland last year
This was the moment teenage e-bike rider Billy Stokoe mowed down and killed grandmother Gloria Stephenson on a zebra crossing in an incident that shocked the nation
The £4,000 type of bike in the crash, which is still being sold online, had a claimed top speed of 47mph and could accelerate from zero to 30mph in 2.7 seconds.
Safety campaigners welcome police action but argue the problem should be tackled at source.
Powerful conversion kits can be sold because the bikes they are fitted to can be used legally if properly registered, taxed and insured by the owner.
Retailers can also sell high-speed e-bikes if they specify that they are for use on private land only.
But these rules are routinely flouted. Labour MP Julie Minns, who has introduced a Private Member’s Bill to ban the sale of illegal e-bikes and conversion kits, said The Mail on Sunday’s investigation was ‘deeply alarming’.
She added: ‘It is completely unacceptable that major online platforms like Amazon make it so easy to buy 500W or 2,000W motors to convert an ordinary bicycle into a machine capable of car-like speeds.
‘While recent police enforcement powers are a welcome step forward, seizing bikes on the street is tackling the symptom rather than the cause. The Government must go further.
‘I am continuing to press ministers to take decisive action to ban the sale and supply of high-powered conversion kits and speed-derestricting devices by online marketplaces once and for all.’
Margaret Winchcomb, of the Parliamentary Advisory Council for Transport Safety, said it was ‘unsustainable’ to leave police to seize ‘what they can on the streets’.
Labour MP Fabian Hamilton, chairman of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Cycling and Walking, said the availability of dangerous e-bikes and conversion kits online ‘must not continue’.
An Amazon spokesman said it was ‘removing the products’ highlighted by The Mail on Sunday.
He added: ‘We require all products offered in our store to comply with applicable laws and regulations and we monitor for product safety concerns.
‘We go further by requiring sellers of e-mobility products to provide documented testing certification carried out by an accredited lab.’
A Government spokesman said: ‘E-bikes that have been modified to be faster and more powerful than the rules allow are motorbikes, and unless they have been registered, taxed and insured, they are illegal and have no place on our roads.
‘We have given police stronger powers to seize vehicles without needing to issue a warning and we are cracking down on unsafe products sold online.’
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