Originally Posted by
Nightdiver
I'd have a mod move this over to ebikes. You'll probably get a better crop of responses there.
Agreed with above poster about purchasing a mid-drive bike, preferably one with higher torque to help with those hills. But these tend to be on the higher end of the price scale. What's your budget? For a good off-the-shelf mid-drive bike with a Bosch/Yamaha/Brose/Shimano motor, expect to start around $2000.
Some people opt to retrofit an existing bike with a mid-drive, but this is often done either because of budget, or to skirt the restrictions of pre-built solutions (speed limit, max motor power, throttle, proprietary batteries, etc).
Since this is going to be your only vehicle, you might consider a utility bike or even a small-ish cargo bike for all those times when having some extra hauling capabilities would come in handy. Having a motor really changes the game of hauling loads up hills.
Considering this will be a car replacement (and I'll be selling my car), I'm OK with a budget of $2-3,000. I don't need to go fast, I just need to climb with stuff, so I'll check out some utility bikes.