My wife and I are considering electric bikes to go to and from the downtown area from our house. It is only ~ 1-1/2 miles (depending on how we go) but it is a big hill. The return trip is about 600 ft climbing and there are a few 10% (even brief 12%) grades. Once in downtown, everywhere else we want to go is within a few miles and dead flat.

We cycle a lot, and I can make it up the hill on regular bikes, but it is a very hard workout and not something we want to do after dinner in town. We have been driving it, but would love to be able to take bikes. thus, eBikes.

So I am looking at doing an electric conversion on our town bikes. Both are 26" mtb-frame based commuters that I built up from frames myself. Rigid forks. One fork is steel, the other Al, but I can replace it with steel easily if I need to. Both are 135mm rear spacing, QR all around, V-brakes. Both 1x8 drivetrains. Regular threaded BBs. I am around 175 lbs and my wife is around 135 lbs. We really love these bikes as they have all the fenders and racks/baskets we like, plus they are both pretty styley. We just don't use them anymore since we moved up on this big hill.

What we ultimately want is a throttle motor that can do as much of the work as possible up these hills. We have no interest in pedal assist (we would pedal enough to make up what the motor lacks). I don't see us ever going very far with them, no more than 10 miles in a trip.

I need to keep the total cost to under $1K for each bike.

So my first question is whether a hub motor is out of the question for this. My understanding is that we would need really powerful hub motors since they cannot take advantage of the bike's gearing? FWIW, we are not too concerned with top speed on flats, just the climbing. A friend of mine did a front hub conversion and I liked how simple and easy it was. And it looks relatively easy to revert if we were to go on a trip where we wanted to take these without the motors (am I wrong about that?).

If a hub motor is not in the works, what is my best bet for a mid-drive? Again, we are not interested in pedal assist, and do not want to spend the money on it if it adds cost. The two options I've looked at online are the Bafang BBS02 and BBSHG. The BBSHG looks really awesome, though it is probably more than I wan to be spending if the BBS02 will do. I liked the idea of the gear changing sensor, particularly for my wife who can be a little ham-fisted with gear changes. Any others to look at?

I have little experience with ebikes (other than riding a few) but am a very solid bike mechanic.

Thanks for any help/recommendations)