Quick Change: E-Moto Maker Altered Website After Fatal Crash

It’s a rug pull.

Deepower, the company that manufactures the illegal e-moto involved in Wednesday’s fatal crash, thinks it can just change its website to make its “bike” seem legal.

Luckily, we have the receipts.

On Thursday, hours after Gabriel Nacato, riding a Deepower “QS7 High-Performance Electric Bike,” was killed in a crash on Centre Street in Lower Manhattan, the company changed its website to make the illegal 1,500-watt two-wheeler with the 30 mile-per-hour max speed into a legal 250-watt e-bike with a 20-mph max speed.

The change came after Streetsblog reported the original specs for the illegal bike. The before and after shots are below:

Consumer advocates immediately objected.

“Consumers can’t trust the products that they’re buying if the company is straight up lying about the capabilities. It’s especially concerning if you consider a parent buying an e-bike for a child,” said Cooper Lohr, the senior transportation and safety policy analyst at Consumer Reports.

It is unlikely that Deepower actually changed its product, which would require a new supply chain overnight. Indeed, the product is still listed on other websites, like Walmart, with the old specs or an even more powerful 2,000-watt motor.

The company’s site also had an FAQ page which taught consumers how to “effortlessly” unlock the speed limiter to reach speeds of up to 50 mph. But after Streetsblog revealed its presence, that page was taken down. (Don’t worry not, scofflaws! Deepower still has a video tutorial listed on its official Youtube account.)

Nacato’s uncle bought him the bike online as a gift, his family told Streetsblog. The teen was using it to commute from his home in Bensonhurst to Manhattan for work and school. On Wednesday morning, according to a preliminary police report, Nacato was on Centre Street, not in the protected bike lane north of Chambers Street, when he and the driver of a huge 2008 Chevrolet Tahoe collided. Nacato fell and struck his head. He died at the scene.

The Deepower “QS7 High-Performance Electric Bike” belongs to a class of cheaply made, falsely advertised two-wheeled electric devices known as e-motos. They are often marketed as “e-bikes” even though they do not meet the legal requirements.

“It’s sort of the wild wild west. You have so many products out there that claim to be e-bikes and then will openly brag about being able to hack the bike,” said Lohr.

State law bars e-bikes with motors bigger than 750 watts — strong enough for cargo bikes loaded up with goods or kids. But slapping a 1,500-watt motor on what is little more than a metal frame and a seat creates a very fast and unstable vehicle.

“A 750-watt motor, its purpose and intent is for cargo bikes,” said Jareth Sweazea, the Operations Lead at Upway, a company selling refurbished legal e-bikes. “If you have extra weight, you need the power to move it. That’s not the same thing as a lightweight bike intended to go 50 miles per hour. It’s like taking the motor from a super duty truck and putting it into a Honda Civic. When you get bad actors changing things around and cutting corners and putting overpowered motors on light frames, thats when you get into dangerous situations.”

The company, Deepower, also cuts corners with safety in other ways, like using manual brakes instead of the industry standard hydraulic. Mechanical brakes work with a metal wire that goes from the handle bars to the brake pads. The braking ability comes from how hard you squeeze the handle, which can be dangerous when a bike is fast and heavy like the one Nacato was riding. (The company did not respond to a request for comment for this story.)

“Looking at this brand, and its competitors, they try to get to the lowest price point possible with the most power,” said Sweazea. “For e-bikes, the industry standard is hydraulic brakes. That’s really important when you get over 40-50 pounds. This bike is more than 100 pounds. That’s irresponsible of the manufacturer. Even if its working properly the stopping power off mechanical brakes when you’re going that fast it will take you a substantial amount of time to stop. Anything goes wrong and this is what happens.”

It’s unclear exactly why the city, state, and federal regulatory framework hasn’t been able to stop these devices from being sold online, even though they are already illegal in most states for use on the street. European cities with strict laws around e-bikes and scooters have turned to devices called dynamometers, or “dynos,” to test a vehicle’s max speed.

“We’re talking about the marketplace. A state like New York has certain laws and standards in place, but it just seems like online sellers are so easily able to get around those. Actions need to be taken and a lot of it is enforcement action, figuring out who these sellers are and enforcing the laws and the standards in that state,” said Lohr.

Attorney General Letitia James is poised to issue a consumer alert to try and curb the proliferation of these devices, which experts think is a first step. Still, politicians use high-profile e-moto crashes to push for licensing and registration of the legal, safe low-speed e-bikes. Manhattan Borough President Brad Hoylman-Sigal, a Democrat, wrote on X that he supports legislation that would “require e-bikes to be registered with the NYS DMV and require a license to operate them.”

Sweazea says that he’s off base.

“It’s putting a bad name to something [the e-bike] that is so necessary, eco-friendly, reliable, affordable transportation. It’s a shame to see so many bad actors in the space,” he said.