From what I can tell it started with people in their late fifties, sixties, and beyond going electric in order to stay mobile in the face of a degrading body —

From what I can tell it started with people in their late fifties, sixties, and beyond going electric in order to stay mobile in the face of a degrading body — i.e., to augment the user's strength. I still think this is the largest group of buyers, but I get the impression — from observing people in traffic — that a good amount of people who use electric bicycles come to depend too much on the engine, hardly providing any power themselves via the pedals. People who cycle along at 15–20 km/h tend to use the battery power as an augmentation, whilst those who pass everyone by at 25 km/h tend to depend on it for at least 90%. This looks to me like a general loss in healthy exercise. Then there are the gadget freaks that buy the so-called 'speed pedelecs', which can hit speeds of up to 45 km/h, but because these have recently been relegated to the moped category in Dutch law, these are no longer allowed on bicycle-exclusive cyclepaths, and have to use the main carriage ways instead. Their rise in popularity seems to have stagnated — thankfully! They don't really fit into Dutch traffic as it is, being too fast for cyclepaths, and too exposed to use safely on roads where drivers may expect mopeds, but not souped-up electrical bicycles. In any case, most people will have owned a normal bicycle before going electric. Some do use it to replace the car for commuting, because a distance of up to 30 km may take much less time on an electric bicycle when traffic is bad, and more healthy to boot — as long as you peddle along!