I feel like this is paid by Disney to keep GM as a sponsor. Really cool commercial though! $30k+ for a compact car is more than most people should be paying tho. Would love to see EV's start at $20k.
You are paying for the batteries. The Mustang Mach e is $5k for 80 miles additional range. Even if that is marked up more than 100%, it's still over $2k cost to Ford.
You've got to think in terms that you are pre-paying for a portion of the fuel. The electric charging over the life of the vehicle will cost significantly less than gas for the life of a similar vehicle. That doesn't come for free. Instead of a cheap fuel tank to store energy you now have an expensive battery pack.
Past a certain amount of driving, you will end up paying less overall with an electric vehicle.
You do know that even a Honda Civic starts at a higher cost than that right?
Under 20k is the land of sub-compact cars. And the US market has repeatedly rejected 'specialized' city type cars... especially for alt fuels. This is why you see GM/etc trying to make EVs in the popular SUV/truck segments.
I think they are going after the SUV and Truck segments because the additional cost of the batteries is a much lower percentage of the typical costs in those segments. Also, the efficiency increase of those size vehicles is a lot more.