I and my peers (30 and younger) just aren't buying new or even used cars due to financial reasons, let alone EVs.
The capital outlay on a new car, let alone an EV is too high when factoring incomes, and alternatives.
And these are peers of mine in VC, Finance, Engineering Management, L7+ engineers. For our friends who are doing average jobs the affordability crisis is even worse.
If it is increasingly unaffordable for high earners like us, then there is something fundamentally wrong.
And let's be honest, a sub-35k EV is a solved problem. BYD and similar companies sells in Australia, NZ, Central Europe, and Japan at a similar price point.
The monthly cost reaches $1k a month in 2023 (parking+interest+insurance).
We all can afford it, but the question is why spend $12k a year on transportation when Caltrain+BART+Muni+VTA and Uber come out for less.
> buying a 25K
The average new car in 2023 is $48k, and the average used is $26k. With used you end up paying more in insurance and get worse financing.
Most of those high earning jobs are in the city and suburban areas, which makes car ownership a luxury.
Though, even in rural areas car ownership costs have become heavily unaffordable, now that average rent prices nationally are around $1400/mo compared to $700/mo a decade ago [0], while median salary in 2023 is at $4,000/mo (pre-tax)
[0] - https://www.census.gov/housing/hvs/data/histtab11.xlsx
To be clear, I wish it were different. I owned a 2015 Volt, and I loved (still love) that car, and I think it would be the perfect vehicle for most people. I get 35-40 miles of electric range, which for me means a round trip to work plus 1 "errand" trip. The benefits were I never had to worry about range anxiety (I'd frequently use all of 0.1 miles of gas if I went over electric range during the day), I never needed to special charger at home (it would charge overnight on a normal US outlet), and for long trips I didn't have to worry at all about "charger anxiety" because it would just switch over to gas.
And what happened? The Volt was always a money loser for GM, despite most owners loving the car. It was a huge lesson to me that (a) marketing is hugely important in the car industry, and (b) most people's car purchases are basically emotional decisions. It doesn't matter how "practical" your car is, many people essentially see their car as an extension of their identity.
Again, I wish it weren't this way in the US, but pretending it's not doesn't do anyone any good.