I've only ridden one of the EU legal ones that you have to pedal and they support you up to 25km/h but even that was fun as all hell. Seriously, if you ever ridden a bike down a hill it's that at all times as long as the battery holds. They're genuinely insanely great vehicles for transporting one person and some cargo.

I think they have great potential to replace many, many car trips, especially if you get into Cargo E-Bikes. The problem currently, imo, is that they're seen as expensive hobbyist things because the infrastructure to allow safe travels on a bicycle isn't there - at least here in Germany. People will put up with shitty weather, they won't put up with nearly being flattened by a car on every trip. It's the whole thing where a 1000€ Bicycle is a rich man's toy but a 20.000 € car is basic necessity. Due to how the country is, this is kind of true in some cases allthough by no means as much as people tell themselves. Like even if only for fuel savings, the E-Bike will amortize itself fairly fast.

And at least for my area, this tracks. Only time I ever see E-Bikes is with middle-aged or old people using them for a nice ride out through the national parks here on the weekends - which is a good thing, but it's not the revolution of mobility I'd like to see. It seemingly doesn't replace car trips, it's just a somewhat expensive hobby people do on the weekends. I think this is equal parts shit infrastructure and brainworms.

As for the hand wringing about how unsafe they are, that's just the typical bicycle bad victim blaming bullshit talk. You'll get your "oh nooo the pensioners can't be trusted to do 25km/h on a bicycle, they don't know how to deal with that" when no one bats an eye on grandpa joe barreling his Mercedes through the city at 50km/h. You'll see statistics about injuries increasing but then you find out it's not them eating shit from talking a corner too fast, it's mostly them being hit by cars because the infrastructure is garbage.

I do think they need more regulations as far as batterys are concerned. We're seeing the first wave of E-Bikes being trashed like 5 years after they're bought because the battery is dead, it's built in and can't easily be replaced and that's if you even find a replacement for whatever propietary bullshit the manufacturer put in there. This is insanely wasteful nonsense, bikes hold up waaaaay longer than that easily even if you abuse the fuck out of them, but with the battery dead and irreplaceable you do just end up with a heavy-ass bike nobody wants. You might be able to salvage parts, but that's kind of out of scope for most people.

I will not lie though, I do feel smug when I overtake an E-Bike with my wattage bazookas because let me have that, I need to struggle against the wind near constantly.

I recently purchased an ebike, it's a utility bike so it's solid for carrying cargo, I put a 70L pannier bag on the rack and attached a basket on the front. With a backpack, you can carry a lot of stuff, I do my weekly grocery shopping with ease on it. Outside of the EU, you can use the throttle, no peddling required, but if you want to pedal there is pedal assist, which makes riding like walking on air. Inclines and riding against the wind is no problem, I've taken it out during windy light snow conditions. A decent one goes for around $1200. Ebikes are heavy, mine is around 70lbs, so if you live in an apartment, check its weight. Folding ones will make it slightly easier to carry.

oh yeah, if it doesn't already include an alarm, get one. You can get them cheap on aliexpress. It's basically activated by the slightest touch of your bike. I've seen too many pictures of expensive u-locks getting hacked, pryed apart and bike stolen. At least the loud alarm will scare off a potential thief