So we’re down to discussing the actual difference in price. I’m not up on actual costs, and have no desire to be. So I won’t get into that.
Instead, I’ll point out that consumers don’t care one whit about the cost of the motor in their car. (Again, a relative handful of the geekiest of car geeks excepted.) Investors might sort of care, to the extent it affects corporate profits. The car maker management should care a lot. But consumers - nope. I’ve never heard a consumer say they were thinking about getting a Hemi engine in their Charger, but the base 6 cylinder engine was so much cheaper for the company to produce. No, they say the car with the Hemi was too expensive, so they bought the car with the 6 banger.
The same thinking will apply to EVs. The car with the 250 mile range cost too much, so they bought the cheaper car with a shorter range.
I’d also point out that if a car maker is trying to make a car that can be sold at a lower price point, they’re not just going to use a less expensive drive train, but they’ll almost certainly put a less expensive car around that drive train. So in the real world, the price difference between a shorter and longer range EV is likely to be much more than the difference in drive train costs.
—Peter