The City-Trail MTB?

I see a point, generally, in having a full suspension E-bike with fenders and racks – because it smoothens out curbs, roots and connecting trails on everyday terrain from city to day touring on vacation, and I see them as a valid one-bike-for-all approach.

This particular example is ridiculous imho – totally overengineered for the task. But when that trend emerged about 2 years ago, manufacturers just took their full-sus models and slapped fenders and racks on them, leaving riders with an often unsuited sporty geometry, only half-helpful fenders (too short) and a maintenance-heavy back end (so many linkages…). But cheaper for them than to design a whole new bike (besides these industry-leading size companies like Haibike (they are in Europe) are huge tankers that cannot fit their huge quantity infrastructure into little market niches). These bikes are a quick win for manufacturers to skim off demand from that particular target group.

If you were trying to find a good-quality full-sus with fenders and racks three years ago, options were rather thin.

The first global brand to have a good option was Specialized with their Tero X line – very simple solid one-link back suspension, extremely long fenders, racks fitted and additional rack mounts on the front – and a very low frame design. Extremely capable every-day bike – my wife had one first and I had to get one as well after I tried it.

I know the market quite well because I was looking for such a bike, and was totally put off by these mostly uninspired bikes totally missing the point. However, I almost endet up getting one of these exact Haibike models because they were on sale at half price more or less all through 2024 – and at 3.000 € they were at least a good compromise.
[edit for typos]

The winner of the city/trail mtb has got to be the Marin Larkspur imo

But with e-bikes, the commuter category is honestly the biggest chunk of the market and an ebike brand would have to be stupid to not show an emtb capable of commutes and shopping trips too (or they’d have to focus on a much much smaller market of hobbyist mtbers)