My wife and i each have 2 ebikes. 1 Wallie World bike with a Cyclone 360w kit and 1 Ezip 450w. I love riding both on mine but my wife only rides her Ezip. She never rides more then 4 to 6 milesat a time. Whereas, I like to go for 20 to 30 miles at a crack. On out short rides (4 to 6 miles) we have no problem with the Ezip batts. But there is no way I would ever attempt using them for 20 to 30 miles. For mt bike I have Thunder Sky 24v 20ah lipo4 packs. One pack will carry me 30 miles on forset preserve trails with no problem. And with my second pack my butt would give out long before the batts would. Cost for a TS 24v 20ah pack is only $256. A great price for lipo4 batteries but considering I only paid $240 for each of our Ezips I guess some would consider it expensive.
Without question there are 2 problems with the Ezip design but both are understandable. problem 1) cheap batteries. But let be honest you got what you paid for. The basic bike has a few really cheap parts on it but you can generally live with them. But the batts are a long term expense and the time to deal with it is as soon as the original batts fail. Don't waste money buying more SLA batteries. Bite the bullet and go lipo4 and they will last you for many years. Problem 2 in the weight distribution. I actually rolled my bike up onto a 2"x4", sat on it and rolled off the front wheel onto a scale and then the back tire onto the scale. here's what I found. First I weigh 220.5# and the bike is 84.5# with 2 batts. = 305#. The front tire is supporting 89.5# or 29.3% of the total weight. The rear tire is supporing 209# or 68.5% of the total weight. Yes i know the numbers don't add up. I think it was because I was supporting myself on the car so I didn't fall over. But it's close enough to show the problem. This is why the Ezip breaks so many spokes. The batteries and motor look good sitting back there but it's a hell of a load when combind with a disproportion of your own weight.
By the way I made a case for my lipo4 packs and they mount in the rear tire rack the same as the original Ezip batteries do. While the lipo4 packs can run 4 times the miles and live 10 times as long they weight exactly the same. What a deal!!
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As you can see the lipo4 pack is a little bigger the the standard SLA pack but it's well worth it.