New York State Wants To Make It Much Harder To Buy An Electric Dirt Bike

Ordering your next electric dirtbike from the internet could become a thing of the past in New York.

Photo by: Niu

By: Enrico Punsalang

Oct 5, at 7:19am ET

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Electric anything seems to get quite a bad rap these days. And quite frankly, it isn't all that hard to see why. Electric "bicycles" (which are really dirtbikes in disguise) have spent the past few years getting ridiculously fast all while remaining dangerously easy to buy. Depending on what you're looking at, something with motorcycle levels of performance can arrive at your door after roughly the same amount of effort it takes to order a case for your iPhone on Amazon.

New York lawmakers apparently think that's become a problem, and a newly proposed bill could dramatically change how these machines are sold in the state.

Senate Bill S10700, introduced by Senator Kristen Gonzalez, creates two important categories. First is the "e-moto," broadly defined as a motorized device capable of exceeding 20 miles per hour that isn't otherwise excluded from New York's motor-vehicle definition and isn't eligible for registration. Under the proposal, businesses operating in New York wouldn't be allowed to sell, offer for sale, or resell these machines at all.

But things get particularly interesting if you're shopping for a legitimate electric off-highway motorcycle. The bill defines these separately as electric-powered off-highway motorcycles that are eligible for registration. It wouldn't ban them outright, but it would make buying one considerably more complicated. Online retailers wouldn't be allowed to sell them, and sales would instead have to go through an ATV dealer physically located in New York and registered with the DMV.

And no, the dealer couldn't simply hand you the bike in a crate and wish you luck. The legislation says an electric off-highway motorcycle sold in New York would have to be registered with the DMV by the dealer before it's delivered to the buyer. Kinda the same way it's done with a real dirtbike, ATV, or UTV. So yeah, the classic electric dirtbike experience of finding some unhinged machine online, typing in your credit card number, and having a giant cardboard box appear outside your house could get considerably less straightforward.

The bill also takes aim at one of the messier parts of the current e-moto market: what these machines are actually called. Sellers would be prohibited from deceptively marketing something as an e-bike, electric scooter, or another legal micromobility vehicle when it doesn't meet the relevant definition. Sellers would also have to warn buyers that applicable e-motos and electric off-highway motorcycles aren't legal to operate on New York public highways or streets.

There is some ugly context behind all of this. The bill's sponsor memo points to a May 28, 2026 crash on the Queensboro Bridge involving a non-street-legal electric scooter reportedly capable of more than 50 miles per hour. It collided with a cyclist, killing both riders. Gonzalez argues that machines with far more performance than legally defined e-bikes and scooters are entering public streets partly because consumers can easily buy them and because they're sometimes marketed in misleading ways.

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That's also what makes S10700 broader than another proposal to crack down on people riding illegal e-bikes. New York isn't only looking at what riders do after buying these things. It's going upstream and targeting how they're sold in the first place.

S10700 hasn't become law. It was introduced September 14 and remains in the Senate Rules Committee. But if it advances in its current form, electric dirtbikes wouldn't disappear from New York. Buying one could simply start looking a lot more like buying a traditional powersports vehicle, complete with a dealer, paperwork, and considerably fewer mysterious boxes showing up on your porch.