I think it's because they know they can't compete with quality or specs at the low end. They'd much rather get customers with gimmicks and "controversial" aesthetics. Chinese cars would eat anything they could build for that price for breakfast but even legacy brands like Hyundai and VW have been able to make good EVs far cheaper than Tesla.

Then sell it for 20k it would still be one of the cheapest on the market. That seems like a pretty braindead leap in logic. The "at cost" comparison is just to show how cheap the baseline should be.

The point of society is to live on.

And I said "basically at." As in, make SOME money, just not excess money.