Can I ride an electric bike in Hawaii?

Tuesday, March 9th, 2010 at 11:21 am

I'm interested in purchasing an electric bicycle but I read the following on wikipedia:

Electric Bicycles in Hawaii are considered a Illegal motorized vehicle

"Bicycle" [4] means every vehicle "propelled solely by human power" upon which any person may ride, having two tandem wheels, and including any vehicle generally recognized as a bicycle though equipped with two front or two rear wheels except a toy bicycle. [43]

However.... they have at least 10 different stores dedicated to selling electric bicycles and I see people riding around with them all the time, and it there was a new story regarding one of the stores promoting the use of electric bikes/scooters as alternate transportation. Any help would be nice.
Specific as in how? I'm just wondering if I can ride an electric bicycle in the state of hawaii legally, like I said they have many dealers here and I see everyone riding them plus you can rent them, just regular bicycles with motors (max cheap Ampicillin speed is like 15-20mph), however everyone claims they are illegal.