New York mayor Zohran Mamdani has issued a cease-and-desist order against 42 online retailers illegally selling “dangerous motorised vehicles” in the city, in a bid to clamp down on the use of illegal high-speed e-motorbikes and stand-up scooters.
According to the mayor’s office, the vehicles being marketed and shipped into the city “exceed legal limits for speed, weight, or other safety requirements and cannot lawfully be sold or operated on city streets”.
Under New York City law, it is illegal to sell or operate on public streets electric bikes with motors capable of a power output of more than 750 watts or an assisted speed of over 25mph.
Motorised stand-up scooters weighing more than 100 pounds or capable of traveling faster than 20mph are also banned, as are seated mopeds that do not have a valid Vehicle Identification Number.
The crackdown on these illegal machines comes a week after a 17-year-old illegal e-biker was killed in a collision involving an SUV driver in Lower Manhattan (notably, the statement released by the mayor’s office only referred to the “illegal device” and not the motor vehicle involved).
In May, a cyclist and the rider of an illegal electric scooter both died following a reported head-on collision on a segregated bike lane on Queensboro Bridge, a tragedy which led to a wider discussion about the regulation of electric bikes and scooters in the city, sparking this week’s move.
According to the mayor’s office, illegal machines now account for over half of all rider fatalities involving e-bikes and stand-up scooters in New York.
Between 2017 and 2025, 45 fatalities involved illegal e-bikes capable of providing a pedal assist of over 25mph, accounting for 54 per cent of all e-bike rider deaths during that period. During the same eight-year period, 14 road deaths involved stand-up scooters not restricted to the 20mph limit.
The new cease-and-desist order will see retailers that continue selling illegal e-bikes or e-scooters face a civil penalty of up to $2,000 (around £1,500) for each sale. If any person is caught riding an illegal machine, it may be seized by police and destroyed.
“Every family deserves to know that when their loved ones leave home, they will make it back safely,” Mamdani said in a statement announcing the new measures.
“That promise becomes harder to keep when companies profit from knowingly selling illegal, high-speed vehicles that have no place in our city.
“Since 2017, more than 45 people have been killed while riding illegal e-bikes, including the young New Yorker whose life was cut short last week, and more than 14 people have died while riding illegal stand-up scooters, including the horrific incident at the Queensboro Bridge earlier this year.
“These are not unavoidable tragedies, they are preventable losses. Today, we’re putting online retailers on notice: if you continue selling dangerous, illegal devices into New York City, you will be held accountable. We will use every tool available to make our streets safer for everyone who walks, bikes, drives, or rides.”
Mike Flynn, New York’s department of transport commissioner, added: “Two of the biggest factors of the severity of a traffic crash are the speed and weight of a vehicle, which is why the proliferation of faster, heavier illegal e-mobility devices is such an alarming trend on our streets.
“While legal e-mobility remains a great option to get around the city, faster illegal e-bikes and scooters are dangerous for everyone who shares our streets, including riders.
“These online retailers have allowed New Yorkers to purchase products that are illegal to sell or operate on city streets – and that must come to an end.”
New York’s 15mph/25kph speed limit on electric bikes and scooters is the same as the cut-off speed of a street legal electric bike or scooter in the UK and Europe. However, nationally most class 1 and 2 micromobility vehicles in the US have a 20mph assistance cap, but they are still legal to use in New York, putting the onus on the user to keep to the 15mph limit.
New York City also has its own distinct Class 3 micromobility category, which allows for the use of a throttled e-bike or scooter capable of 25mph speeds (still limited to 15mph when riding it). These are classed as motor vehicles in the rest of New York State.
Illegally modified electric bikes and scooters are certainly not a rarity in the UK and beyond – but some have argued that the extra layer of confusion and ambiguousness in New York has led to even more rule-breaking, putting law-abiding cyclists, scooter riders, and pedestrians in added danger.
2 thoughts on “New York mayor Zohran Mamdani issues cease-and-desist order to online retailers selling high-speed illegal e-bikes”
Not sure if I’m missing something but presumably this extends to those selling modification kits too, not just vehicles that are already illegal out of the box?
@mitsky most of those are probably bought online, so that will be tough to do anything about.