Anecdotally: I helped someone look for a cheap car recently and the base models are everywhere on my local lots. YMMV and I'm sure someone will respond that their area doesn't have any, but in my recent experience it wasn't hard to find a base model at all.

It's driven by consumer demand: If you can pay $30/month on your 5-year loan and get heated seats and a nicer navigation system, that's $1/day for 5 years and then you own it. It's easy to talk yourself into stepping up to something nicer that you're going to use every day.

▲

graemep a day ago | parent [-]

I suspect you are right that this is linked to how much time people spend in their cars.

I am quite happy with a cheap car because I do not use it everyday, and even when I do the majority of my journeys are short ones (15 to 20 min).

▲

jfengel a day ago | parent [-]

I really wish there were an even cheaper car for that use case. Perhaps billed as a second car for families, where one is used just for commuting and errands, and the other is the general purpose one with a longer range. Say, with an 80 mile battery, two seats, and under $10k.

I gather that they exist in China and might be allowed into the US. I'd buy one.

	▲	seec 7 minutes ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Same. Something like the Citroen AMI but with better range and speed, probably slighty bigger and around 10K. I doubt it's going to happen because that would kill a large part of the market : every familly that needs 2 cars just because they go to work to different places but would only use a single car for the heavy duty or long range needs. At the start it would be a hard sell for many because of social status but overtime people end up voting with their wallet, so it could work. But that would be a pretty bad deal for the industry, so they'll only turn to that if they can't sell anything else. Nowadays even the smallest cars starts around 20k, which is absurd and it even affect the second hand market because cars maintain their value better thanks to this pricing.
	▲	nandomrumber a day ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		I was hoping secondhand Nisan Leaf’s would fit those criteria by now. The Nissan Leaf’s biggest problem is it’s the only vehicle in its class worth considering, or available at all, so secondhand ones are sold at whatever the market will bear. There’s the Prius, but whoever is responsible for its styling will be the first against the wall when the revolution comes.