My mom is 65 years old and wants an ebike for tootling around with her friends, who also have ebikes. I'm wondering if someone can recommend an ebike for roughly $2,000 range. She thinks range and comfort are the most imporant metrics.
For comfort, you'll probably want to have her ride different styles of bike (electric or not) to see which one she is comfortable on. Everything from seat type and height to frame length to bar style to grip placement to crank location, riding posture, etc., wll make a bike comfortable or uncomfortable for different people.
Also, a bike that's comfortable for a few miles may not be for ten or more.
Juiced seems to make decent bikes, based on posts over the years, but...do they make more than one size of each bike, and how adjustable are they for different people's shapes and sizes?
With decent range (50-70 miles?)
How far will (can) she ride in a single trip?
That, and back, is the range she "needs", plus a margin for adverse conditions, such as winds, detours, pack aging, etc.
Depending on the kind of trip, she could get an even smaller pack, and charge at the destination(s), if she was willing. It makes for a lighter, easier to handle bike (and possibly significantly lower cost, since a good battery can cost as much as all the rest of the system combined).
A bigger battery can give more range, but it also is larger, heavier, and more expensive.
If the conditions are all completely flat, "perfect" paved roads, no winds, and she's not contributing to the power with her pedalling, and riding at say, 15mph, she's probably going to use, at a guess, 15-20wh/mile with typical bicycle profile/tires/etc. Faster uses more power, and less ideal conditions use more power. You can guesstimate usage with the specific conditions