Originally Posted by PoorInRichfield

I agree that electric bikes aren't really different than motorcycles and cars in respect to them having batteries, but what is different is that bike manufacturers encase the batteries in bike-specific shells where as most other vehicles use pretty standard batteries that one can pretty easily replace at a store like Batteries Plus or WalMart.

For most consumers, they still think of a bicycles as this toy you buy once and never need to maintain short of putting air in the tires (which many recreational bicyclists don't even do.) Convincing the consumer that an e-bike is a vehicle that will need maintenance and has future maintenance costs that are relatively high (i.e., new battery) is likely not something that is mentioned when the bike is purchased... but should be.