No, a moped doesn’t always have pedals – and other inconvenient truths you may hate
There’s a surprisingly strong debate long-swirling around the term “moped.” For a word that started as a simple mashup of “motor” and “pedal,” moped has caused an outsized amount of contention. Now, with the prevalence of a new age of light electric two-wheelers, that debate has only grown. What began as a literal description of a pedal-equipped motorbike has, over the decades, evolved into something broader – from legal definitions to common usage. That evolution hasn’t sat well with everyone. So let’s talk about what a moped was, what it became, and why insisting that language remain stuck in time might be missing the bigger picture. I’ve worked in and professionally covered the light electric two-wheeler space for over a decade and a half – nearly but not quite as long as the space has existed. And so I’ve had to grapple with some of these issues longer than most. When I recently referred to Honda’s interesting new ICON e: electric two-wheeler as a “moped,” it would appear to some that I apparently committed a …
