The biggest issue I see for higher priced bikes is secure parking (as mentioned in the article). No one provides secure/supervised parking and its tricky to get insurance. You can't really lock any nice bike outside the supermarket and always expect it to be there when you get back.
But if you have to deal with serious hills or want to use throttle-only, 250W won't be enough. IMO 750W is the bare minimum for that, and it requires a bigger motor, bigger battery, and disc brakes.* That costs a lot more and it's easier (and probably cheaper) to just buy the whole bike than convert what you have.
*Disc brakes are essential for higher-powered e-bikes because such bikes move faster and are much heavier than regular bikes. They need more serious stopping power than rim brakes can provide.
I ride with a friend who has gone MTB electric. I leave him behind on the flat but he gets it back on the hills. He's fine for well in excess of 40 miles. Range is mainly an issue of battery size not the wattage.
https://www.congress.gov/bill/107th-congress/house-bill/727/...
Those numbers seem huge. I can only put out about 150W sustained, so a 250W motor boost on top of that sounds like a lot. That would have me at 400W combined which is nearly pro-rider territory.
My road bike (a 10+ year old Specialized) is 19lbs.
A Specialized Turbo Creo (an e-bike) is under 28lbs as advertised.
My mountain bike (regular bike, nothing electric) is 29lbs.
I know 60lb behemots exist, but e-bikes don't need to be crazy heavy anymore.
https://www.cyclingnews.com/features/best-electric-bike-conv...