That is sort of true. Electric bikes are allowed because they provide assistance only when humans are riding (pedal assist), never autonomously. The initial idea was to help elderly people cycle. The category has been abused over the years in such a way that we now have bikes that compete with motorized vehicles and unsafe import that is easy to tweak, pushing bikes way beyond their legally intended limits.

Agreed that it may cause some confusion but in The Netherlands the amount of electric fatbikes against plain old fatbikes is in the order of 1000:1.

Actually “ebike” is also too generic as there are multiple ebike classes. The one discussed here is the pedal-electric one that has a legitimate maximum of 25 kmph in Europe. But there’s also the speed-pedelec which can go up to 45 kmph and has type approval.

Cannot be done, as these bikes are not technically compliant for that. First you would need to upgrade the brakes, frame, lights et cetera and add mandatory features such as brake lights, a mirror, license plate holder and a horn. Then you would have to get type approval as this is mandatory for every motorized vehicle, which adds cost to every produced bike.

When you’ve done all that, your product is no longer affordable and will fall in the same price category as all other motorized scooters.

The problem is not that the product cannot be classified, the problem is that the product is being used in an illegal way such that its speed and power go beyond what is allowed, which creates safety risks for the rider and anyone else around.