True. But there are no $35k luxury cars either. Is it not possible to create an EV that is equivalent to a Civic, for example? Sure, you strip away a lot of the stuff that makes a Model 3 so good. But that’s the point. Give me an EV Civic or Corolla, and stop trying to make a $35k Avalon. Because nobody can.
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Well, it might indeed not be possible to do that.
Right now, EV batteries are expensive and scarce. The assumption that proponents make is that the current pause in price declines is, in fact, a pause - that once the supply chain stuff gets worked out, prices will start declining again. But if that doesn’t happen, it might indeed be the case that this essential component of an EV just is and will remain too expensive to use in a Civic-equivalent car.
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It is true they don’t. On the other hand, GM seems to be backing up its more optimistic view of EV pricing with its advertised $30K electric SUV out in 2023 and a lineup of EV models below $30K by 2027. All apparently made possible by a new battery architecture called Ultium. Meanwhile at Ford:
Ford’s chief executive says the global auto industry is headed for a huge price war in the coming years as electric vehicle costs drop and multiple companies sell EVs priced around $25,000. https://www.usnews.com/news/business/articles/2022-06-01/ford-ceo-sees-electric-vehicle-price-war-as-ev-costs-decline
So you have Ford, GM, and VW with optimistic views of EV adoption, while Stellantis and the Japanese companies are more skeptical. On the other hand, Toyota has partnered with BYD to build a $30k Corolla-sized EV for the Chinese market. Apparently what attracted Toyota was improved battery technology that may make EVs affordable for the masses.
A Toyota source talking to Reuters said that it is what is enabling the automaker to produce its first affordable all-electric car:
“The car was enabled by BYD battery technology. It has more or less helped us resolve challenges we had faced in coming up with an affordable small electric sedan with a roomy interior.” Toyota partners with BYD to build affordable $30,000 electric car | Electrek
Toyota may be joining the EV wars.
Clearly, if that happens it would cut against the Stellantis prediction. If GM can actually bring to market an EV Equinox that’s actually 20% cheaper than their current ICE version of the Equinox, that would be a significant accomplishment indeed - and point towards considerably better affordability that I expect.
I disagree with your idea that we are “at scale” with EV components, especially batteries.
Recall the PC market in the 1980s and 1990s. Chip production was at scale with millions of PCs being made. And yet laptops weren’t that great and a desktop PC was not to be found for less than ~$1795 anywhere in the mid 1990s. Motherboard chipsets (Northbridge & Southbridge had already taken ~40 chips and reduced to 2) A CEO announced that they would make a $999 PC the next year using a clone x86 chip. Unheard of, can’t be done, but if you did no one would want it.
Mix in Internet demand, hundreds of no-name box makers and less than a decade later you can buy a desktop PC for $499. Much more capable and laptops are substantial as well.
You can buy more premium parts and build a better PC, but most don’t. And, of course, speed is better and there are more features too (mostly thanks to Moore’s Law which mostly doesn’t apply to BEVs)
Second point. The market does correct for lack of supply of commodities. Just look at oil and gas industries. Low supply/high prices = more searching, more drilling and tech advances (like fracking) and supply goes up and prices drop…usually overshooting. Although everyone complains about oil prices, haven’t you posted about how the price of oil hasn’t kept up with the CPI over decades?
Do you NOT think that various mining companies plus innovators (like Tesla and other companies with lots of cash) aren’t going to go all in on establishing multiple source of lithium and other commodities? More than 50-50 odds there is an oversupply coming. Just hard to predict exactly when.
Mike
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I don’t think you can compare chip production to EV’s (or EV batteries). There’s no Moore’s Law for batteries. Or indeed almost any other manufactured product. Microchips and electronics are a perhaps unique situation where technological development advances at such a rate that the cost per unit memory keeps falling and falling, and doesn’t have an upward-sloping curve. There’s almost no other product that applies to. Cars and lawnmovers and toaster ovens and jet skis and patio furniture and bidets and almost anything else you can think of aren’t declining in price over time.
The same is true of oil, BTW. Over the very long term, oil prices aren’t rising to the moon - but neither are they generally falling:
They’re certainly going to try - but that doesn’t mean that they’ll successfully be able to bring those resources on-line to match demand. I agree that there may be an oversupply - but not if there continues to be robust, indeed hyper-, growth in EV uptake.
Maybe you didn’t notice…but that is what I wrote. 
What actually happened in the mid 1990s with PC prices was that the price of lots of things got optimized and that brought down PC prices – higher demand, higher volume, lower prices.
I’m talking about the price of the metal cases, the power supply, the motherboards (without chips), the CRT (later replaced by better cheaper LCD). Even the cabling. Wide ribbon cables for parallel signals replaced by cheaper/better serial digital cables. Oh, and the hard disk drive. Smaller and cheaper. (Similar to Moore’s Law they also got denser and faster, but mostly irrelevant to the fact that the most basic HDD was cheaper.
High demand, led to high volumes with better automated factories and an optimized supply chain. Even though they were making tens of millions before, 100s of millions per year meant even greater economies of scale. Moore’s Law got the headlines…but you can now buy a (cheap) PC for the price of a case and power supply back then. Moore’s Law makes it do more and run 100x - 1000x as fast.
Mike
It’s not JUST because they can’t get battery supplies fast enough. It’s mainly economics.
They make $10k on a big SUV.
They make $7k on a small SUV.
They make $4k on a sedan.
They make $3k on a EV.
So they have to adjust their product mix to maximize profit. That means fewer EVs, and more SUVs.
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I thought this was a stretch of the truth but after looking it up the average rate is 40c/ to 70c/KWH but at home you can charge for 9c/KWH. That is highway robbery, unbelievable.