“If you asked most owners of these e-bikes about which they’d give up if they had to, they’d probably tell you “take my 21-28 mph speed but leave me my throttle”.”
This seems like a bad take. Do most people really only ride on the throttle?
I’ll keep my higher speed and lose the throttle, thanks. How about a non-stupid firmware update that locks to 20 if a throttle is connected, and unlocks to 28 if there isn’t one?
An instant full throttle of 750 watts is really not that hard of a push. It’s not gonna get away from you.
Commonly, the brake lever functions as a motor cutoff. So, sitting at a stop light, you can still move the pedals without activating the motor if you squeeze the brake a little.
on my ebike, I get an instant 50w from pedal movement. Takes 3 revolutions before I get full throttle. 50w is not too bad, but still jarring, and 750w would have caused big problems in some past cases.
Come to think of it, I do have my controller set to ramp up to full power over the course of like 1 second, instead of coming on instantly.