I am a lifelong aggressive urban road bicyclist (was a bike courier in New York for a bit, still mostly ride like that). Last year I got my first e-bike a ride one up roadster, which has been great. Considering my first mountain bike for casual trail riding [edit: single track sometimes, but nothing crazy technical. I live near some hills and there's tonnes of fire roads, with connecting single tracks between them, to explore]. I'm completely mystified by how hard it is to find bikes under $2.5 k with tires that are 2 inches or less.

The idea of fat tires seems horrible to me because of rotational inertia and agility, But nearly all e-bikes in my price range have them.

Am I wrong to be concerned? Does the electric motor offset the enormous reduction in acceleration and braking I expect with all that rotational mass so far away from the hub? Should I expect a huge sacrifice in agility? I've never ridden a bike with less than 80 lb air in the tire, does a 30lb tire feel like riding on mush?