Some of the cheap locks have plastic sleeve bearings. A thief's trick would be to pour lighter fluid into the lock and set a flame to it. The plastic innards melt and disintegrate and the lock can be opened.

Just take a good heavy hammer to it. Do it during daytime and some time when noise won't bother your xiaoqu. I did this to a cheap old cable lock when it broke. The lock and cable interface broke open on the 8th swing. Might take a lot more swings for a brand new u/d lock type.

The hidden switch is the

best deterrent.

Your key

is just a simple On / Off switch, thieves just connect the only 2 wires inside your key unit.

follow one of those wires further away from your key unit, at that point cut and add your wired switch

at your desired place.

A battery powered angle grinder can get through most locks, including fancy hardened steel u locks in less than 30 seconds.

u locks are crap

Kunming police is delivering green numberplates for e-bikes on street corners atm. Price is 150 RMB/Plate and it does have GPS build in. In case the bike is stolen, the police "could" track it down and if they can't find it, there will be insurance paying for the bike. If someone does have more accurate information, please share!

To be clear, the GPS is built into the number plate and the police "could" track down the location of the number plate. This assumes the battery powering the GPS is still functioning.

that means if you remove the plate, you look like most of the other ebikes with no plate, and the bike cannot be tracked. is that the case? would only work if you get 100% registration and any bike without plates is stopped considered stolen. otherwise it aint gonna work. shame

@Geezer: The funny thing is, the GPS thingy isn't battery-powered. My first thought was like yours, they just cut the power and the signal is gone. My neighbour showed me his plate and it looks like a normal one... just bigger than the old plates for ebikes.

@Dazzer: They will also engrave the plate-number on the bike-frame like with the normal registration/plates you could do before.

Not much official infos, but i found this site:

club.autohome.com.cn/bbs/thread-a-100029-60623027-1.html

They write if the bike is lost, insurance will pay 600-800 RMB!?