The withering dream of a cheap American electric car

I wish it would have adjusted for inflation. One quote: "The average transaction price for a new vehicle sold in the U.S. last month was $48,623, according to Kelley Blue Book, roughly $10,000 higher than in 2019, before the pandemic." However, about 9200 euros of that is due to inflation according to this calculator: https://www.usinflationcalculator.com/

That's a nitpick though. All in all, an interesting article, which can be summarized as: the EV car market is lacking demand, and car makers definitely don't want to make cheap EVs since it's already so hard.

I’ve never spent more than 20k for a car. With prices like this, I’m just going to keep my old one as long as I can.

But with so few options, like the parent, I'm planning to keep my current car (a 2008 Prius) indefinitely, just paying for repairs as needed until parts are unavailable or nobody is willing to do the work.

My worry is that US automakers have all but abandoned the compact and midsize economy car segments, and I don't know what tariffs will mean for the Japanese and Korean automakers that do cover these segments. But see my other comment about the pendulum swinging back and forth.

It was a totally functional vehicle. The radio sounded good enough. The seats were comfy enough. It was a bit of a slug, but it had enough power so that you weren't scared for your life when merging onto a highway.

If those sound like low standards... well, this was not always the case for bargain basement cars...