Electric Bikes - Pi Electric Bike

I see that no one has mentioned this electric bike.

Disclaimer: I have a friend who has invested in this company, which is how I found out about it. I don't have an opinion as to how it performs, but the design stopped me in my tracks the first time I saw one. The batteries are in the frame, and the hubs are the motors.

Here is the company website. (http://www.pimobility.com/)

Here is my photo from a bike event where a guy rode in on this one.

There was a discussion about these a while back, but I can't remember if it was here, on endless-sphere, or visforvoltage, or what. Basically, people were unimpressed with the structural integrity. Something about the weld points and weight distribution. From what I remember of the web site, they claim it is similar to an arched bridge with a keystone, but a bridge has the sides anchored into the ground; they are not freestanding. Seems the wheels would just splay out with weight on top and torque from the front motor. Then again, I'm not an engineer, just a science teacher. ;)

Unfortunately, I couldn't ever see myself purchasing a bike like that. The arch in the middle would make stepping through difficult, there's no removable battery pack, so I'd have to get the bike near an outlet, the non-traditional frame may make maintenance non-trivial (especially the crank, not sure how hard I'd want to hammer on it), and few bicycle accessories would be compatible with the frame. If I wanted a bike with an internal battery, I'd definitely go for this: http://shop.optibike.com/index.php?option=com_virtuemart&page=shop.product_details&flypage=850Rflypage.tpl&product_id=35 A hub drive with a Rholoff Speedhub was something I'd been thinking about for a while, and the range is over double that of the Pi bike.

Thanks for the comments. I'm not electric bike oriented and I know nothing about them since I still provide my own motive force.