Fuel or electricity should cost what it costs. Vehicles need to be taxed according to their externalities. Heavier vehicles have more externalities. Road maintenance, pollution, traffic injuries and fatalities to name a few. I think if we did these things we'd trend back towards reasonable vehicles over time, and that would be a big net win.

> U.S. fossil fuel subsidies stretch across the U.S. tax code, which makes detailing their costs complex. The IMF estimates they stood at $760 billion in 2022, a figure topped only by China.

Phrasing it this way also just begets that tax deductions are subsidies: “It's like these other highly subsidized industries.” Its rephrasing your conclusion rather than making some new point.

They certainly make very short trips 10x easier and more fun though.

If there was a big enough market for that EV at 20k to make production practical, car companies would make them in an effort to maximize profit.

But Americans have a lot of money and a lot of space and want big vehicles; EVs are more expensive to produce, so it’s the rich people that want EVs. And those people aren’t going to buy a little toy box.

That might make sense if the only two options were "make nothing" and "make EVs to sell for 20k". In the presence of other options, however, the manufacturer might decide that that's not the optimal strategy. Or existing regulations, tariffs, or subsidies might be distorting the market. Automobiles are probably one of the least-free markets this side of pacemakers.

So a 20k EV probably just involves too many compromises to make it a winning proposition for both the buyer and the seller.

Now, is the market efficient / globally optimal? No. Welcome to complex reality.