I don’t have data on this, but my subjective impression is that over the last several years, the number of manufacturers selling EVs and the price of EVs have both increased at the same time.
Of course, additional supply should normally decrease prices, but maybe there’s something weird going on. Here are some possible mechanisms I dreamed up:
1. Could the various manufacturers (collectively bringing lots of cash to break into the business) be bidding up the cost of some inputs? If high demand allows the market to bear higher prices, maybe everyone just ends up paying more?
2. As EV moves from “government environmental policy compliance program” to “luxury essential”, the types of cars on the market change. Just because it’s technically possible to make a cheap EV, doesn’t mean they will be readily available. By analogy, air-conditioned seats are no engineering marvel, but are usually only offered in upmarket vehicles, probably as a type of price discrimination.
