E bikes also have a dial, all it does is it limits the speed when it stops accelerating. You can dial the bike all the way up, peddle but not apply any force and still accelerate to top speed.
That depends on what you mean by 'dial it up', do you mean a throttle? If so then that's illegal. If it is just a 25 kph bike then you can feather the pedals and it will go up to 15 or so and above that you'll have to work for it.
Interesting. So you're saying that they have to keep pedaling, just not very hard? My only experience is with the Lyft e-bikes, where high speed required actual work for me.