A clever way of answering the actual first question "why so expensive?"
I guess the appeal of the folding bike is more for irregular or infrequent trips.
Totally agree on the freedom aspect. Bicycles are ideal for inner city travel. Cars should be banned. I often use public bicycle shares when I travel now which is great because you don't even have to fold/carry or lock the bike up anywhere.
Yep, this is how I use it. I have another ebike for everyday use.
Not sure about the two-bikes concept though, because long-term bike parking is still a huge problem, security-wise, esp. for ebikes.
The NS (Dutch National Railway) sells a secured bike storage subscription starting from 75 euros a year. And you can do it cheaper if you use your bike frequently because at some stations the first 24 hours are free.
And if you have a cheap bike that you use just for your commute you can also just put it in the free bike storage and only move it secured if you know you will be gone for >2 weeks or whatever the limit for free storage is.
Paris is also not flat, so unless you're super in shape it's difficult to use a non-electric bikes (depending on the journey, of course), and ebikes tend to be stolen much more than regular ones.
In other French cities, I don't know enough to have an opinion; I think Strasbourg is a little bit better.
That being said, I know people who have done the two bikes thing, or at least one bike that "lives" at a railway station, for a long time and not aware of them having any problems.
The 200€ one won't help you if you need to fly it. Even for road trips, for 2 adults in a city car, the size constraints could be enough to not bring two biggish 200€ along.
Basically, the choice comes to a 200€ bike you never bring along, or 800/1600€ bikes you can bring anywhere.
There are two Chinese brands for the engines: Bafang and Tongsheng. Bafang has a better reputation; I used a Bafang for my first conversion (a regular MTB). But Tongshengs, in addition to being a little more affordable, are true pedal assist: power is proportional to the force you put on the pedals. It's a different experience from Bafang, but pedal assist feels better on a small folding bike, IMHO.
You can buy them on Aliexpress; look for vendors who have inventory in your country, which allows for faster shipping.
Here's the final build:
https://i.imgur.com/TBHHOc1.jpeg
... and on the road in Marseilles:
http://www.velogical-engineering.com/velospeeder/produktinfo...
As bambax said - that's not what affordable means. Affordable is all about whether the target market can afford it, not whether it's good value for the materials and work put in.
Two of the most important advantages of a folding bike, namely the weight and the folding volume, are also the largest cost factors in the product price.
The price is a matter of quality of material and manufacturing and number of parts. The lower the weight, the higher have to be the quality, the more compact, the more high-tech parts are required. the more expensive will be the bike.
You can't produce a folding bike with only 10 kg and only 55 l of folded volume that can easily be ridden up to 25 km/h and is stable for people from 1,30 m to 1,95 m and up to 100 kg for prices below 2,000 euro, unless you produce 100,000 or more in a year or you sell directly to the customers.
A few months ago I bought a used folding bike for €100, equipped it with a motor and battery that cost less than €400, for use on train trips.
Nothing feels better than getting out of a long-distance train trip, unfolding your bike and going about your way in a different city... No taxis, no complex public transport map to understand, nothing but freedom.