@Alexez: If you can find someone with residence address outside the 3rd ring who is willing to register the bike under his name, you can get it registered. Heard of that from other cities... but honestly, the time it's registered it is legally your friends bike and if it's not your friend anymore, that could be a bit of a problem.

My gf is local and She was asking around about that ( co-workers etc. ) . Probably answer went trough some "modification", from - cant drive motorbike in KM ( as u said :almost every place within the 3rd ring road ) to - can not register it at all :-) sorry if I was wrong then. I dont know any more details about engine size etc. But as I said, my gf asked motorbike seller, for who they sell these if u cant ride it KM ( that was last year )
PS: with e-bike I ment 20kuai for 72V and 20kuai for taking a passenger - 40 kuai;-)

Anyway, when I was asking cops near to my place they told me: for carrying a 2nd passenger 20-80kuai, but u r laowai, mei wenti:-)

I guess problem is not the money, unless u pay that every day, but the fact u r doing an ilegal act and if u happend be in accident (not your fault ), u might be in bigger mafan then the other person who crashed in you with 48V bike. Just guessing.

Guys, are we sure that motorcycles are not allowed within the 3rd ring road? I have seen gradually more of them since last summer. In Dali there are quite a few, more than here in fact.
By motorcycles I mean petrol engined, at least 250cc, most likely more than 600cc. In many countries in Europe they are traffic ruled exactly like cars.

And for such type of big motorcycles, do you need a special Chinese driving license, or would a Chinese car license be valid?
Thanks

Does the "no extra passenger" include children? During the morning and afternoon school run, every other e-bike has a child or two on...?

Gotta be adults, never seen any stop pullover kids, unless it's two adults + kid. But there is probably a law about kids on ebikes in waiting.

Ocean...and that's the paradox here. Legally u r not allowed to carry adult passenger, only kids :-)

Ricsnap....if u can see motorbikes here, it doesn't necessary mean its legal now ( or it maybe ).

Look, as we discuss here 72V e-bike not legal, carrying adult not legal.

How many diadnogche taxis ( in fact its ilegal too ) using 72V bikes carrying 2-3 adults u see in KM every day? :-)

Can you take a marker and change the 7 to a really long 4? :)

Motorbikes (Any size) are not allowed within the 2nd ring road unless you have a special registration. That is a number plate starting with a 1 after the A from Kunming. These plates are not issued any longer so old motorbikes with a licence plate starting with A1 fetch much higher prices but are very hard to find. It means as well that you cannot register a motorbike on an address within the 2nd ring road.

There probably is a good reason for banning e-Bikes at 72 volts. 72V-DC is quite lethal and electric shocks of even 48V-DC can be dangerous.
On top of that the extra power is usually not used to enhance endurance but to create higher speeds which are a danger as such. Needing the extra power because of size and weight can be achieved as well by getting a fresh set of batteries which for a 48V cost only 2/3rd of those for a 72 V.
PS.
eBikes are not environmentally friendly. A lot of electricity is produced in a dirty way and the batteries are always very polluting (Even when they are recycled). So take a muscle powered bike.

While on the subject of moped/bike drivers I'd like to take the chance to moan about some crazy foreigner on one!
Crossing the road in front of the Aegean today a foreigner on one came out of nowhere going wrong way down the road with the light red at super speed, nearly hit me and then carried skimming the rest of the people crossing, shaved a bus going by and then carried on wrong way down the next road he'd turned into.

I thought chinese were bad on 2 wheels but you sir were a complete ......... insert whatever expletive you feel suits ;)

Anyway he probably not reading, just fancied a moan and wow this thread popped up lol