Product looks awesome but not so much at that price point. How much do they actually expect to sell?
I'd definitely think of it more like a scooter or a bike. I used to commute by bike a lot and wouldn't flinch spending $900 - $1200 on a commuting bike, but my bike also completely replaced my car, so money saved on gas, repair bills, parking, etc was well worth it.
I imagine this is the kind of thing that would only be worthwhile to most people if you're really going to integrate into your lifestyle as a primary mode of transit.
There are obviously a lot of ways this is different from a bike but a few that seem important to me (mostly compared to a bike, and this is all pretty subjective and just my opinion on how it looks):
Pros - If you don't push at all, less (almost no?) effort to get where you're going. Possibly less sweaty. - More portable/compact (than most bikes); not having to stop to lock up a bike seems pretty nice, especially if you have a bag you just clip/slide the board into.
Cons - Battery life; bikes don't have batteries, and while you're putting more energy into a bike, they make super efficient use of that energy if you have a geared bike - Last I checked, the board couldn't be used in the rain; not sure if that's still true. Seems like it'd be more difficult to make this your lifestyle if you live somewhere it rains often (this is a big one for me) - Terrain; this less than the others, but there are a lot of obstacles I can deal with smoothly on a bike with large diameter wheels that seems like they might be annoying on a board
as always, ymmv
The power generated by braking has to go somewhere. If not to the battery, it would have to be shunted to a big resister array, and wind up as waste heat that might require cooling fins. This would add weight and cost.
I remember riding a metro car with regenerative braking that dumped the power to a resistive array on the roof that made a kind of buzzing noise when braking.
