My girlfriend is looking for an electric bike for commuting.
My question is fairly broad - What features and capabilities should we consider when choosing an e-bike for commuting?
For information, we are living in Vancouver, BC and she will be commuting between West End (downtown) and SFU (Burnaby). She's 160cm high and weight 55kg.
You might want to give us an idea of the distance but my wife has recently bought a freego hawk for a commute of 11km each way (about 2/3 your distance and flatter). The specs and list price are not disimilar. She's a little taller but this is a fairly forgiving frame layout.
She gets 2 days round trips with the battery still showing 1/4 to 1/2 full, pedalling all the way, and it's knocked about 1/6 off her commute compared to a mountain bike with city tyres after doing that for some time, and is still less tired. Note that in the UK the motor must by law cut out if you go >15mph. This extends the range at the expense of speed, as does the lower wattage motor generally used here.
If your girlfriend could ride it on a normal bike (MTB/city bike) in the same sort of time google says without practicing (~1.5hours), she might get under an hour on an e-bike assuming traffic lights etc don't take up too much of the time.
If she'll be stuck behind other bikes or in traffic then it won't be much quicker than riding normally.
Some questions for you to consider:
On balance e-bikes are great for commuting in many but not all situations, and can carry quite a lot of load without increasing the effort too much.
As someone who has done that exact commute the better part of a decade (although on a non-powered bike) and limited experience with e-bikes (getting one for a family member) here are my thoughts.
By bike route you are looking at 20 km each way (40 km total), with a very large climb (SFU Burnaby is on top of Burnaby Mountain; 1200 ft elevation and the West End is at sea level). If you take a quieter route (e.g., the TransCanada trail - my preferred winter route), then you are looking at even longer distances and even more climbing.
I can only surmise that you are looking at an e-bike to help with the volume of climbing.
Due to the nature of the route, battery performance (both total capacity and number of charge cycles) will really be important as you will be pushing the battery range of most bikes. Depending on the capacity you may have to re-charge at SFU prior to heading back. Either way you will be cycling the battery at least once a day. High-end batteries will be rated for around 500 charge cycles, so this means you will get at the very most 2 years out of a very good battery pack.
Not all e-bikes are however created equal in terms of battery performance. The battery is often the most expensive component, and the easiest way for manufacturers to cut costs. Some manufacturers may cheap out on capacity (meaning you might not make it to SFU). Others may have higher capacities, but opt for batteries that can sustain fewer total cycles before losing substantial capacity (meaning a very costly replacement). Other manufacturers may put in high quality batteries in that have both capacity and can sustain a high number of charge cycles. You will need to do your research here.
Finally, you may also want to consider mixed-mode transport (e.g., bus or skytrain) with a regular bike or even a folding bike so you do not have to worry about finding rack space on the bus or skytrain as another alternative.
