An addendum

Here’s a little addendum to my previous post this morning. After writing it I finally received a message from the testing station near Paris that deals with the approval of imported vehicles. It said that they cannot help me until I have approached the local office of the DREAL who will decide on what visual and other tests will be required to approve the bike.

Now, I’ve already been fobbed off by the DREAL and it’s interesting that I should therefore be referred back to them so I made contact afresh this morning. And what did I encounter? More obfuscation.

Someone who is closely involved in the process asked if my bike is from China and when told that it is, replied that that makes it ‘difficult’. So it’s obvious that what is happening is a concerted strategy of imposing barriers to Chinese electric bikes coming into France, and possibly all Chinese electric vehicles for all I know.

It was implied that I wouldn’t be able to get approval for a single bike – although this is the point of being able to homologate a single vehicle for personal use – only the whole series, which would be a very expensive process. I was asked to submit my request with full details by email, so this is what I’m going to do. But seeing French bureaucracy operating in full flow in detriment to the interests of the individual is certainly not a pretty sight 😐