I think the author is imagining a market segment containing a lot more new riders (who may, in fact, have learned biking as a kid and never touched a bike again

I think the author is imagining a market segment containing a lot more new riders (who may, in fact, have learned biking as a kid and never touched a bike again) than existing riders. A lot of people legitimately need cars right now, given the options realistically available to them; e-bikes can carve away at that. (To be clear, I don't see why we actually need to pedal backwards. Assuming we're otherwise comfortable with a bike-by-wire system as the author advocates, a a brake-by-wire lever should be super cheap and has none of the maintenance complexity of physical brakes.)