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these are good questions... I have opinions of my own based on my own preferences and experiences. What your questions tell me, is that you aren't ready to buy an ebike right now, and you need to spend more time demo'ing them and answering those questions for yourself. No offense meant here... but time in the saddle is the only way to truly answer the questions you have. Do not rush into buying an ebike until you can answer these core questions you are asking... you will regret your purchase if you do not slow down and figure this out...

Sram Powertrain... Talk about hype that disappeared quickly.. I thought I had read somewhere that a new version is in the works... Wait and see?

Wait… there’s gonna be a dji Santa Cruz ebike?

Crestline added swappable dropouts to ther emtb from their DH bike. It seems like a must have for any new frame from any brand moving forward.

A flip chip plus a swappable/adjustable dropout (or some other chainstay lengthening method) is "the answer" to a lot of people's questions. Brian Chainstayhill and others can have their long chainstays and Santa Cruz can reduce the number of different triangles they need to make. I think Pivot has a proprietary dropout that allows for length tweaks. I wonder if there's a way to engineer a similar approach without infringing on the design...I'd bet there is but I don't really know anything about that stuff nor have I looked at any filings.

Hugely helpful for me. I have been wanting some flexible 50 rise bars so you delivered that info perfectly here

I wrote a lengthy post on another forum back in the day when they gave up all their US production and predicted that would get them in trouble. Previously the arguments for them were short turnaround times because of in-house production (early production 29ers, 27.5ers), constant evolution of "same model year" frames (small modifications between batches when they found a better solution, e.g. additional/differently placed cable stops), and made in the US. They had a unique selling point in "made in the US" that they gave away because of the wish to grow and go carbon. Now they have to...

Can we get some insight on how intense happened? From what is literally the hottest bike (the old M1) to now. Have a soft spot for them, thought about buying the new M1, but this feels like decades of bad decisions leading to this point.

To be fair its not like the other manufacturers have vastly superiour policies or reliability. Plus people like to shit on shimano but they actually have kept the same motor mount for almost 10 years now. This means if your motor craps out or you're dissatisfied with the power on your old e8000 you can get a new or lightly used more powerful motor for relatively cheap. (lightly used motors start from 300-400€, new starts from 600-700€ in europe) But yeah, they should offer cheaper replacements or spare parts. Its simply uneconomcal and not at all environmentally friendly to basically...

Damn! Did we work together? :D Only bit I would add is pull the lever slowly/lightly. If there's an internal leak, it may hydrolock under fast/hard pulls and give a false negative for the internal leak. A couple pages back I listed out the steps for diagnosing a mc piston leak, hose leak, or reservoir issue. Situ can be modded here on by setting the lever in the bleed position and popping the cap off to observe what the fluid is doing.