Thanks for at least toning it down a notch E trike.
RE the kit itself,, you will need a much more unbreakable direct drive motor for the cargo bike later. The mac 10 t is not so good for overweight bikes, and hills. If hills simply don't exist where you are that is one thing. But I suspect once you have the assist, you will want to go where the hills are.
But,,,,, you know,,,, you won't want to move the kit to the cargo bike,, you'll want two ebikes by then. I assure you this is true.
For your commute needs,, and some recreational riding, the Mac is a very good choice.
Personally, I come from lots of motorcycle riding, and never had much trouble adapting to throttles. If you do go with PAS,,get one that is fairly easy to tune to your preferences. This could be pedal sensor type, but that is likely way out of your budget. Increase the budget if you want that pas.
But riding throttle is not so hard, once you get over the initial whoo ha effect where you just ride wide open throttle all the time. Its fun at first for sure!
But after the whooo ha wears out a bit, just pick the gear you always liked to ride in, or maybe just the highest gear. Use the full throttle to get going, then back off and settle into your favorite cadence in that gear. Then gently bring back up the throttle till it's easy, but you don't have to chase the motor increasing your cadence. Steady cadence and steady speed regardless of wind or hills is the thing you want.
Now you are in the butter zone,, perfect cadence, perfect effort, plenty of speed, and you can keep that up for hours and never tire on any hill. It's also the very most efficient way you can ride at any given speed. You can get this perfect ride with pas,, but once you get it to be automatic using the throttle, you will spend much more time in the perfect cadence than you do with PAS.
Get that pas tuned wrong,, you'll just chase that motor all day, or not get enough help, or spend the whole ride swinging from one extreme to the other. This is very typical of cadence type cheap pas. Often not easily tunable by the user, if at all, and not enough magnets on the cadence ring.
To me,, isn't it easier to just turn a throttle a hair, than search for the right pas setting, or have to change your cadence for a hill. Steady cadence is much better than pas.
Now that is for you. For your wife,, spending the money on real pas might work best once you figure out how to tune it for her.
My wife,, she's rode scooters and stuff with throttles, but she just simply won't adjust to throttle use on an e bike. Not can't,, wont, know what I mean? Can't get over the feeling like a cheater thing, Can't seem to find that butter zone, or simply won't look for it. Beats me. She just pedaled too much on road bikes when young to change now or something. She also fails to adjust to MTB gearing, she pedals in too high gear at slow cadence. It took me some time too, to get used to the super low MTB gears, pedaling at higher cadence in a lower gear.
