That's about to change. Prices are coming down rapidly. The US is lagging the rest of the world mainly because its car industry is a bit uncompetitive (except for Tesla) and because manufacturers there are spoiled with a market that just has an insatiable demand for pointlessly large and expensive vehicles. That's still a growth market and very lucrative. Which means that US manufacturers are dedicating their very limited EV production capacity (except for Tesla) at that market exclusively. Because that's where the profits are.
BYD, Stellantis, and others are already producing cheap EVs by the millions. There are tiny EVs on the road in Europe that cost as little as 7000 Euros. Not a lot yet but I've seen a few in the wild. Think lots of plastic and not a whole lot of range and speed. Perfect for a city car. Stellantis is launching a proper EV for 24K euros this year; the Citroen e-c3. Modest range and good enough speed for short journeys on the highway. VW is following soon with the ID2. And of course the Chinese market has very different pricing than the rest of the world because it's a much more competitive market. BYD already has vehicles in the price classes you mention in China. You can buy EVs there for less than 10K$.
Producing cheap EVs is a solved problem from a technical point of view. It's being done. They exist. Just not in the US. Not yet at least. But as volume production kicks in that's just a matter of time.
Eh... as the Ford Maverick showed, people in the USA do want smaller and more efficient vehicles. Likewise, the Civic and Corolla have remained in the top vehicles for quite some time. People keep buying F150s because Mavericks became unobtainium really quickly, and the car space (as opposed to truck) has renewed competition from KIA and Hyundai which has dropped the overall sales figures for Japanese and American sedans.
Also, vehicles under a certain size and weight are illegal in many US states so anything similar to a kei car is outlawed. It is therefore unknown whether or not Americans would like even smaller and more efficient vehicles, but demand for some small-ish models seems to indicate that they would.
BYD, Stellantis, and others are already producing cheap EVs by the millions. There are tiny EVs on the road in Europe that cost as little as 7000 Euros. Not a lot yet but I've seen a few in the wild. Think lots of plastic and not a whole lot of range and speed. Perfect for a city car. Stellantis is launching a proper EV for 24K euros this year; the Citroen e-c3. Modest range and good enough speed for short journeys on the highway. VW is following soon with the ID2. And of course the Chinese market has very different pricing than the rest of the world because it's a much more competitive market. BYD already has vehicles in the price classes you mention in China. You can buy EVs there for less than 10K$.
Producing cheap EVs is a solved problem from a technical point of view. It's being done. They exist. Just not in the US. Not yet at least. But as volume production kicks in that's just a matter of time.