Regular non-electric bike pricing gives some good clues. There are decent bikes made by Asian ODMs quite affordably, with simpler but good enough parts like steel frames and 3 or 7 speed IGH. They're not that easy to find on the market because it's hard to tell them apart from the crap ones, and this state of affairs is profitable to people selling bikes.

Also there's been a lot of consolidation, and there aren't many big bike manufacturing companies, so some illegal collusion is not out of the question.