Plus we have the advent of electric cars. Higher priced right off the bat and will be difficult to sell
This is all blatant speculation, but your comment made me think of something. What if manufacturers keep new internal combustion car prices high (even after there is arguably no reason for it) in order to allow them to sell electric vehicles cheaper? It would be an interesting idea: make ICE artificially more expensive while lowering the cost of electric options. This is already done somewhat by state incentives for EV purchases that are (albeit, indirectly) paid for by taxes on gas. Over time, the gap in prices would close and, presumably, at some point ICE vehicles will be more expensive due to increasing EV adoption.
