ready to take off

People are genetically lazy (or whatever) and the minute the economy rises a bit (more jobs , new markets.. ) they will turn to a most comfortable means of transportation and the interest in e bikes will disappear (well , not all together , some will continue to use it). Similar thing happened in 70's with first oil crisis. Back than (I was just a little boy) there was some efforts (mostly done with private persons) to make a step away of oil dependency and some traces of that could be found on internet today (scanned magazine articles); of course , by today standards, those were low tech. You can find some blueprints(or descriptions) for e vehicles from that time , also you can find some stuff for wood(bio) gas or whatever.
I do think that electricity(in one way or another) will propel our vehicles in the future , but not before world industry (read US industry) is prepared to make switch to it. In Europe is somewhat different , but there is a long way to go yet. Fortunately , e bikes are more and more common stuff (unfortunately , not yet where I live - that is a matter of low life standard ) and we all hope that components will get cheaper (batteries especially, but with larger production comes larger demand - so we'll see about that yet). Not to forget that big oil companies buys patents for promising battery technologies and by doing that , they delay application in every day life, sparing time for oil production(Chevron - NiMH , US Army - NanoSafe...).
For me , the best thing about new technologies is opportunity to become (more - less) self sufficient and independent. That means , I will NOT pay taxes trough petrol or electricity bills (if I produce my own electricity), I'll avoid many lows and regulations (those designed for taking money from citizens ) and I won't depend of world (or state) politics - regarding energy for my personal(family) use. E biking is a way to drastically reduce my fuel consumption (less CO2 in atmosphere , more money in my pocket) for a start. Some exercise is good too. With good looking bike I'm making positive advertising for e biking (and green transportation generally). Unfortunately , I'm between e bikes now (financial stuff) and hope to deal with that by summer.

I think the battery advancements have made a big difference. E-bikes with more advanced batteries like 20ah LiFePo4 perform very well, weigh less, have a longer life cycle and are easier to care for.