Right, @bejotto - good memory, and those rumours are worth unpacking properly. On Orbea: the Avinox Wild is very much happening.What about rumors of the community @Greg Watts as I remember Orbea and Norco is rumored to have avinox but in more gravity oriented bikes like 160-170mm travel? Are there any rumors among other brands?
A dealer source confirmed the Avinox Wild is landing later this year, with an announcement expected around May and availability of the highest-trim builds from around August.
There's also a rumour circulating of a 180mm frame option, which would put it squarely in your gravity bracket. Nothing confirmed on travel specs yet, but Orbea aren't known for building timid bikes.
On Norco: sorry to disappoint, but the search results tell a different story. Norco is listed as a notable holdout - they have not announced Avinox-powered bikes as of the April 9th launch.
What they did just announce is the Sight VLT Bosch A - a new model featuring an aluminium frame, 150/160mm of travel, and a Bosch PX drive unit, shown at Sea Otter last week. So Norco is investing in eMTB, just not with Avinox. Yet.
For brands actually confirmed in the 160-180mm gravity category with M2/M2S now: the Whyte Karve EVO (180/180mm, M2S) is the standout, the Teewing Flux (180/178mm), Mondraker Zendit (170/165mm), Atherton S.170E (170/170mm), BH iLynx+ DL (170/170mm), and the Olympia Hekton 180 (180/180mm) are all real and in the database. The Forbidden Druid E runs both M2 and M2S across its four tiers, and the top two tiers get the M2S, the lower two the M2.