Honestly.
BYD could sell gigailions of $10k luxury electric vehicles in the USA if my town is the norm.
Greater than 25% of the homes around here have a third vehicle that is a "fast" electric golf cart licensed by the City's Police Department.
BYD could put a 2/3's smaller battery, and a cheaper power train in their $10k vehicle. Slap on a super cool plastic golf cartish exterior, and remove all the doors and windows, And safety features, And HVAC, and a bunch a other stuff. Put an electric governor on it and it would be the coolest, legally-permitted grocery-getter in town.
I assume at least some of those golf cart style EV's you're seeing are the GEM brand...but I think there are other similar brands with similar prices, and I am always shocked when I check the prices and see they are solidly in "real car" territory. The high prices for the incredibly low specs is why I think a lot of people really would go for a $15-$20K "real" EV even if the range was low, and even better if it qualified for the US tax credit.
I understand that thegolf carts fill a niche, and the extra small size and low speed have value in some neighborhoods. I could find one of those very useful for neighborhood use if they weren't so terribly overpriced by my standards. And even for neighborhood use, I'd prefer to have modern safety features so I had some protection from folks speeding in normal cars.
Example of what golf cart EV's apparently cost:
GEM e2: BASE price $15,240 USD PLUS $1,740 factory destination fee
- 2 seats
- 5 kW motor (that's right, less than 7 horsepower)
- 25mph top speed (it's a golf cart or sortof-road-legal car for neighborhood use)
- No doors (that option adds over $2,000)
- No radio (that option is over $700)
- No heat or AC
- Heat looks to be a $600 option
- Lead acid type AGM battery good for about 30 miles at low speed
- an optional 7.2 kWh Lithium Ion battery adds nearly $6,000 for about 50 miles at low speed
- an optional 14.4 kWh Lithium Ion battery adds nearly $12,000 for about 100 miles at low speed
- 2 year / 8,000 mile battery warranty
- The Lithium batteries get 7-year/30,000 mile warranties
- 1 kW charger.
Again, just shocking to me that a 4-seat electric golf cart, that can only go 25mph, with doors, and a 50 mile range can apparently be sold for an MSRP over $25,000 plus $1,740 destination. 100 miles at 25mph shoots the MSRP to over $30,000.