I read a lot, and I have been noticing some trends. I believe that over the next decade, E-bikes will grow exponentially. Thats why I have stayed around ES, I started here because my son lost his car license for a year. I looked at gasser bikes due to the purchase-price/power/range benefit, but I determined that E-bikes were going to have several recent improvements implemented, and that gassers were being legislated against everywhere they drew attention (due to the noise).
Bolt-on kits (cell_man, e-bikekit.com, ebikes.ca, ampedbikes.com, hightekbikes.com) have a much better bang for you buck compared to the price/performance of factory E-bikes (Currie eZip, Giant Twist, Kalkhoff, etc), but...
from my informal polling of potential E-bike users, and my personal speculation concerning local and federal legislation in the US and other countries...I now believe the endgame for most people who begin buying an E-bikes in the near future will be with a
pedal assisted system (PAS) also sometimes called
pedelec.
This would require the user to pedal in order to have the motor kick in (very stealthy) which are already being sold in some countries like Japan (although at very low power levels). But I can also see people wanting to raise the voltage and hack the controller to have more power, yet without adding more speed. More power would result in faster acceleration and better hill-climbing, but a higher top speed would draw attention.
I also foresee some type of registration scheme happening with factory E-bikes so governments can squeeze a few dollars out of Ebikers, but thats just my opinion, not what I want to happen...
:lol: 
