Follow us today...
Over the coming twelve months, affordable battery electric vehicles will drop to a very low level. This is not our preference. We’d love to see affordable battery-electric vehicles (BEVs) on dealer lots all over America. The sad fact is that the manufacturers don't have the models ready, and there are no available factories in which to build affordable EVs. We will break down all the manufacturers who produce EVs of any significance to show where the decline in affordable EVs will come from.
What Does “Affordable” Mean?
The urban legend is that Steve Jobs bought a new Porsche every six months. For Mr. Jobs, the Porsche was “affordable.” However, Americans know what the term means when applied to mainstream automobiles and working-class Americans. Affordable small cars cost $25K or less. Affordable small crossovers cost $30K or less. In 2024, there will be virtually no battery electric vehicles on sale that meet that simple-to-understand definition of affordable. If you prefer a different term for this huge segment of automotive sales, feel free to substitute it.
Related Topic: Electric Vehicles' Tire Cost Will Negate Maintenance Savings vs. ICE
Remember, the average transaction price (ATP) for vehicles is misleading. it includes luxury vehicles, top trims of popular models, and truck sales. The ATP for compact cars is under $27K. The ATP for compact crossovers is under $36K. You can view the data here.
Battery electric vehicles have a cost and sales price disadvantage. The battery costs are so high they outweigh any theoretical cost of ownership advantage BEVs might have. Look closely at the new EVs that entered the market over the past few years, and you will find that most are five-passenger crossovers with average transaction prices in the $50ks. By contrast, conventional, affordable, high-volume five-passenger crossovers like the RAV4, Subaru Crosstrek, and Honda HR-V sell in the low $30Ks range. Any automaker can sell an EV at a substantial loss. We fully expect them to continue doing so. However, doing that in high volume is tricky. Investors flee. And their flight takes away the capital required to research and develop low-cost vehicles.
Related Topic: Public EV Charger Price Increases Mean It's Now Cheaper To Power a Gas Car
The Bolt and Bolt EUV Have Ceased Production
GM was the affordable BEV leader in America in 2023, with a solid 62,045 units delivered. Production has now ended. General Motors has killed off its Bolt and Bolt EUV despite heartfelt consumer love for the product. Just like the Volt before it, GM’s top-selling affordable green car has been axed, and this time with no replacement presently in production. GM says a redesigned Bolt EUV might return to the market one day. Nobody is projecting that day to be in 2024.
There are still a handful of Bolts and Bolt EUVs in the GM distribution network awaiting sale to end-user consumers. Those will dry up over the coming few weeks and then GM will not have any EV on sale for a price lower than the mid $40Ks. The falsely-hyped Equinox EV won’t cost “around $30K” as GM initially promised, and its release has been delayed. We contacted GM, but nobody at the company will offer a sales date for the upcoming entry-level Equinox EV. What GM did email us saying is that the high-priced trims will come first. We are a year or more from seeing any affordable EVs from GM. If they ever materialize at all. It breaks my heart to say so. At Car Talk, I named the Bolt EUV the best overall EV for 2023. We at Torque News, along with the media in general, have written endless positive reviews of the Bolt over the past half-decade.
Q1 Results Update - Bolt Deliveries Dropped 64%
Tesla’s Model 2 Isn't a Player
Tesla is America’s best hope for a future affordable, entry-level battery-electric vehicle. The media and the EVangelists have been inventing content around the imaginary Model 2 now for most of a decade.
We understand Tesla’s new product introduction timelines pretty well. First, the imaginary vehicle is mentioned in passing. Years pass. Then Tesla rolls out a prototype. Many more years pass. Then, Tesla begins to construct limited factory space for building the vehicle. A year or more passes. The first few ship to local California owners and Tesla-linked consumers. A year or two later, the vehicle is being produced in volume. Use the Cybertruck as an example. It was almost exactly four years from the time Cybertruck was “launched” until it was first sold to anyone. Now, it has “been on the market” for a few months, but there are just a handful in public ownership. An affordable Tesla vehicle, perhaps called Model 2, would follow a similar timeline. So, for 2024, there will be no affordable Tesla sold in America.
The Tesla Model 3 is a fantastic bargain. The Model 3 Performance, starting at $47,380, is the single best value in performance vehicles in history. However, an American shopper looking for an affordable five-passenger car the size of the Model 3 has multiple options in the sub-$25K range available to them. The base Model 3 starts at $40,380, and is also a great value. It just isn’t close to the starting price of many conventional cars its size. Perhaps you can’t get past the idea that the Model 3 isn’t “affordable” in the way we define it. Maybe you can agree that the chances of meaningfully more Model 3 cars being delivered in 2024 are zero since Tesla sold all it could build in 2023 and has not expanded Model 3 production? Or maybe you earn like Steve Jobs and all cars are affordable in your book. If so, you read this just to call us dumb. Proceed to the comments section. No need to wait for the facts.
Q1 Update - Returers Reports Model 2 Scrapped
Nissan’s Leaf and Ariya
The least-expensive Nissan ICE car starts at just $17,405. Nissan has two ICE models and many trims costing less than $25,000. We've always enjoyed testing the Leaf. The Leaf S starts at $29,255. The good Leaf, the SV Plus, with a driving range that starts with a “2” rather than a “1,” has a starting price of $37,305. Neither of these cars meets our definition of “affordable.” However, we would like to include them in our affordable BEV count if our readers will allow it. As has been the trend, the Leaf will continue to sell below its historical highs. We predict that Nissan will deliver roughly 10,000 Leafs of all trims combined in 2024. That would be an increase over the 7,152 the company delivered in 2023. The trend for Leaf has been straight down, but we are optimistic that with really no other alternative, the Leaf can have a good year if Nissan opts to build more Leafs.
Q1 Update - Nissan Leaf Deliveries Drop 54%
The Nissan Ariya we most recently tested had a price in the $60ks. The Ariya is an interesting vehicle, but it is not what we call affordable.
Ford - No Affordable EVs
Ford’s inexpensive Fusion and C-Max PHEVs have gone away, leaving just the Escape PHEV as the brand’s only close-to-affordable vehicle with a plug. We are focusing on BEVs in this story. Ford has no affordable BEVs and has not announced any on the way. The $39K F-150 made us angry after we reported on it and then found out that we could not actually buy one. Therefore, in the future, we will be very careful about what we say about affordable Ford BEVs.
Subaru, Mazda, Toyota
Toyota and Subaru have a close to affordable battery electric crossover called bZ4X and Soltera. Crazy lease deals and cash on the dash may move these vehicles off dealer lots, and they are bumping up to the definition of affordable. However, they sell in low volumes already. We don’t have any reason to predict that these models will increase in volume during 2024. We have not tested either, and many EVangelists have been quite unkind to both in their reporting. Why these models would gain popularity in 2024 is hard to imagine.
The Mazda MX-30 was affordable. We tested it, and we liked it. However, Mazda has only built 100 in each of the past two calendar years, all of which Mazda provided to California residents (on leases, we think). We don’t expect the volume to increase in 2024.
Hyundai/Kia
The Hyundai Kona EV and the Kia Niro EV are both excellent vehicles (other than the base Kona, which has a de-powered drivetrain and a smaller battery). The base two-wheel drive Kona SE starts at about $34K with its weaker powertrain and short range. We have no data on how many Hyundai plans to build, nor will the company say how many it delivered in 2023. That does not lead us to think the volume is meaningful. We wish it were otherwise. The Kia Niro starts at $40,925. That is fully 50% above the cost of other affordable hatchback cars its size.
Volvo
As crazy as this might sound, some in the automotive media are pretending that Volvo will have a low-cost BEV on sale in 2024. The plan is for Volvo to build the vehicle in China and import it to America. We love Volvos here at Torque News. All of them are fantastic, and all of them offer very good value for the luxury shopper. We cannot get on board with a prediction that Volvo will be importing $35K Chinese BEVs in any meaningful volume 2024. We truly hope we are wrong, and we will be the first to sing the praises of any inexpensive Volvo if the vehicle shows up and earns those accolades.
Q1 Update - Zero EX30 Deliveries in U.S.
MINI
One of the best BEVs we have ever driven is a MINI. The 2+2 hardtop MINI Classic starts at $32K, well above the cost of an affordable small car. Still, it is a great vehicle. MINI has so few deliveries that the brand does not distinguish the BEVs from the rest of its cars in its reporting. MINI will not be contributing in any meaningful way to the affordable BEV market in 2024.
2024 Affordable BEV Summary and Prediction
In 2023, GM delivered 62,045 Bolt and Bolt EUVs combined and announced the production had ended. Over the coming weeks, the remaining Bolts in GM’s distribution network will dry up, leaving the American market without any affordable battery-electric vehicles aside from the (sort of affordable) Leaf, which is presently selling at a rate of less than 750 per month. The Leaf will not replace those Bolt deliveries in 2024.
Tesla’s Model 3 is far from what we call affordable, but we need not bicker over its definition. There is no announced plan for Tesla to meaningfully increase its volume of Model 3 cars in America during 2024. Since Tesla doesn’t report its overall deliveries by individual market and model, who can accurately report how many Model 3s the company delivers in America?
Kia, Hyundai, Volvo, and others who have made efforts to bring out reasonably-priced BEVs will continue to fight the good fight. However, there is no announcement from any of these companies that they plan to produce a higher volume of their lowest-cost BEVs in 2024.
This coming year, the affordable battery-electric vehicle market will drop in overall deliveries, and depending on how you define “affordable,” approach a level of meaningless deliveries for 2024. Despite full confidence in our analysis, we truly hope we are wrong.
Image of Chevrolet Bolt by John Goreham.
John Goreham is an experienced New England Motor Press Association member and expert vehicle tester. John completed an engineering program with a focus on electric vehicles, followed by two decades of work in high-tech, biopharma, and the automotive supply chain before becoming a news contributor. In addition to his eleven years of work at Torque News, John has published thousands of articles and reviews at American news outlets. He is known for offering unfiltered opinions on vehicle topics. You can follow John on Twitter, and connect with him at Linkedin.
Follow us today...
