I think one of the reason is most non uber wealthy people are putting a hold on car purchases right now until EV prices go down.

We are in a huge transition phase, with lots of inflation everywhere. For most people EV are still too expensive or inconvenient [1] and they don't want to buy a new ICE car or start a 5y leasing on a car they may soon not be allowed to use wherever they want.[2] Also they fear they won't be able to resell it. It makes more sense to keep that old, already well depreciated old car or buy a fairly recent second hand ICE, hybrid or EV that has already depreciated a lot.

My only non muscular vehicle right now is an ICE motorbike. There is no way I can afford an EV car and I don't want to deal with an ICE car I won't be able to sell for more than scrap value when EV prices will go down.

[1] if don't have parking space at home.

[2] many big cities have started banning diesel cars in center, will probably do the same for gasoline soon. ICE cars will soon become unsellable.

>Translation: luxury vehicles are the future of car sales.

Not in Europe, I was surprised to read that Dacia Sandero a model designed to be cheap was the best seller this year(in Europe), they also hit record sales last year. There are lot of people that do not have the moneyor do not want to spend it on luxury. (and btw before someone points the bad safety rating of Dacia, most of the bad score is because of missing of modern active safety stuff)

https://www.romania-insider.com/dacia-sandero-best-sold-euro...

> I don't see people in the service industry picking up a used Tesla, now or in the foreseeable future.

Purchase price, you've already touched on. You can't even get a USED Tesla for under $20K.

The second problem is charging. Apartments generally have a lack of EV chargers.

Although the purchase price is higher, lifetime is not much different.

https://thedriven.io/2023/04/27/tesla-model-3-total-cost-of-...

And the Model Y is cheaper than the Toyota Rav4 which is in the same category. So cheaper purchase price, and no annual oil changes, cheap miles (at least over in Finland where gas is 2e/liter, 8.14usd/gallon and electricity is around 10euro cents/kwh).

It might be "2 times as expensive" up front, but not for the TCO.

People really need to remember maintenance costs over the ownership period.

In a Tesla all you're really paying for is tyre rotation / alignment / rubber replacements, and air filters. Plus the electricity, in place of fuel. The savings add up significantly.

Teslas aren’t luxury vehicles, even if they’re sold at a luxury price point.

> Model Y is 2 times as expensive as a Corolla.

Which only makes this even more remarkable. What's going to happen when the Tesla 2 comes out and sells for the same price as a Corolla?

>> Model Y is 2 times as expensive as a Corolla.

Which makes it that much more impressive that the Model Y outsells the Corolla...

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Where I live, $5k for a used Corolla gets you something with over 200k miles and which needs another $5k (at least) to address deferred maintenance.