I do not drive anything, after doing a little bit about 40 years ago, I decided a car was not for me. As for inclines, I know all about them; in the 1800 or so miles I cycle in a year, I come across quite a few.
Putting an electric motor on a cycle to get up hills is about as much use as putting pedals on a Kawasaki as insurance against running out of fuel. The range available is not worth the dead weight of the motor and batteries.
Once the fuel cell cycles now being developed come on market we might get a bike with a range of about 150 miles (on average terrain,not just level ground). Then we will have a light weight electric scooter, which will be very useful.
I am 62 years old and live in rural England, I have just cycled over 4 miles against a 20 mile headwind to make this posting. Believe me, I have to keep an eye on the development of electric bikes, if I wish to carry on living where I do as I grow older. But listening to young men like Ben developing ways of using less energy is not what I want to hear. I am not a fanatical keep fit person, but you can't suddenly find fitness in your late fifties, you have to keep at it all your life. My generation in the UK was probably the last that came from survival of the fittest. We had very little medical drugs when I was born, and the diet and living conditions was poor up till then and for a while after. Since then the pendulum has swung completely the other way, with plenty of food and a wonder drug almost every month coming on to the market. But already we can see the the results are not entirely benefitial; obesity is encreasing at an alarming rate. Medical science will be able to keep you alive in old age in the future but it will never be able to keep you fit, and old age without fitness is a living hell. The bicycle in the finest invention invented for retaining your fitness, putting an electric motor on it for short range journeys made by young healthy people destroys this benifit.
