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.

In 1998 a Chevrolet Metro could be optioned without a radio or rear defogger, even. New purchase price was about $9k (equivalent to $14.5k today). Somebody was buying those, enough for it to be worth the manufacturer’s effort to produce it.

I suspect a whole segment of people would be willing to consider a no-frills EV at a comparable price point. Hell, if somebody made something new like a base model 90s Civic into a $15k EV without extra luxury nonsense I don’t actually need, I’d be in the dealership tomorrow.

    Hell, if somebody made something new like a base 
    model 90s Civic into a $15k EV without extra 
    luxury nonsense I don’t actually need

The cost of much of the "luxury nonsense" like power windows and heated seats is heavily amortized since the tooling etc. is shared with the more expensive vehicles, and the actual material costs are low.

Think about it; heated seats are just some simple heating coils. You can get something functionally equivalent that plugs into your cigarette lighter adapter for like $10 from Amazon. It ain't adding that much to the cost of your car.