They don’t sell the absolute cheapest, but they sell a lot of low cost cars. They don’t avoid the low cost segment. $20k is low cost these days, even though the absolute cheapest US car is $14k.

Toyota just discontinued its Yaris that was $17k and Honda still sells its Fit for $16k.

There’s a ton of cars to be sold at the $25k level, profitably. The upsell of new versions down the road is just gravy.

I agree IC cars can be sold for 20k profitably especially when people add options. But that’s starting at a 43% price jump from the ultra low end. However, with current battery prices a 25k EV with decent range is going to need to be cut down with near Mirage levels of options, or be closer to 30k than 25k for Tesla to profitably sell them.

Granted, Tesla could put a 150 mile battery in it but that’s also a major compromise.

The Yaris was available for roughly $14k up until a year or two ago (I only know the Canadian price, which was I think $15,900 cad). It was discontinued because it didn't sell well enough.

Similarly, Nissan had the Micra available in Canada up until a year or two ago.

US Yaris was disconnected in 2020. Even the Mirage jumps 9% this year from 14k to 15,290 in 2021 with a hefty 995$ destination charge.

Companies really have been abandoning this sediment because as I said it’s unprofitable.

You say it was discontinued because it was unprofitable. I say it was discontinued because it was unpopular. Neither of us has shown any actual proof one way or the other

Those subcompacts are still sold on outside NA so latter is plausible.