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Personal Light Electric Vehicles

Additional sign 1022-16 "PLEV free" Additional sign 1022-16 "PLEV free"

The term "Personal Light Electric Vehicles" (PLEV) describes self-balancing or standing motor vehicles. They are ideal for the last mile, especially in addition to local public transport. In international linguistic usage, many other synonyms are in use in addition to the term "Personal Light Electric Vehicle".

Since there is no regulation for these vehicles at the European level, they must be regulated nationally, i.e. in each individual country. Motor vehicles must be registered or at least have an operating licence in order to participate in public road traffic in Germany. For this purpose, vehicles are divided into corresponding vehicle classes. The BASt therefore carried out a study on very small electric vehicles with the aim of making recommendations for a new vehicle class. These recommendations contained, among other things, important technical requirements for vehicle safety as well as specifications for the respective traffic area to be used (pavement / cycle path / road).

The picture shows a woman on a personal light electric vehicle (Getty Images/Westend61)

Personal Light Electric Vehicles within the meaning of the "Ordinance on the Participation of Personal Light Electric Vehicles in Road Traffic" are motor vehicles with an electric drive and a maximum design speed (bbH) of not less than 6 km/h and not more than 20 km/h, which have other features such as a steering bar or grab bar.

At the same time as the regulation came into force in June 2019, many providers started renting out electric scooters (e-scooter sharing), so that thousands of these vehicles are now in use in many cities in Germany. Parallel to this, a ramp-up of privately used Personal Light Electric Vehicles is developing, albeit at a much slower pace, including those that do not meet the requirements of the ordinance.

At present, there are hardly any empirical values on what effects can be expected on the traffic situation in connection with Personal Light Electric Vehicles. BASt was therefore commissioned by the Federal Ministry of Transport and Digital Infrastructure (BMVI) to scientifically accompany the participation of very small electric vehicles in road traffic and to evaluate the resulting effects.

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