Take for example a 2021 Hyundai Ioniq EV. My wife and I actually wanted one a lot. It has a small liquid cooled battery and Google says it gets 4.5-5 miles per KWH from a battery which is frankly tiny by modern standards, but it was enough for our needs. Compare this to the 2026 Hyundai Ioniq 5. The same manufacturers compact crossover gets 3.4-3.9 miles per kwh. On the high end that's a whole 22% less efficient. That means you need 22% more battery, which will weigh 22% more assuming the same chemistries. Then you realize that all that added weight just made the vehicle even heavier, losing efficiency and you have to start your math all over again. With the battery being the most expensive part of an EV, adding that much battery necessarily significantly increases cost.
As EV technology has advanced, and advanced battery technology has become cheaper, manufacturers have not significantly lowered prices, which would lead to greater EV adoption. They have instead kept EV prices high, priced pretty close to the luxury/high performance options, which has limited EV adoption and created a class divide to EV ownership. Using Hyundai again as an example, I can get a new Elantra N for almost the exact same price as an Ioniq 5.
SUVs have been going up as a percentage of sales, but it's not even that Americans don't WANT sedans and hatchbacks. My local Toyota dealer was SOLD OUT of Prius plug ins when my wife and I were out shopping cars. The fact is that SUVs are much higher margin than traditional cars, so manufacturers love to make and market them, and dealers love to sell you on them. It turns out marketing works.
I'm a millennial, so I remember the original gas guzzler H2 from 2003. Now electric vehicles have come full circle to reinvent this absurdity in the electric Hummer which weighs 3 tons and gets 2.1 miles per Kwh on top of being a danger to anyone else on public roads. Unless you're charging on pure renewables I'm pretty sure the Hummer EV might be causing MORE GHG emissions than just getting a Prius.
The Chinese have been doing it better, BYD has been printing out dolphins en masse using cheap (but more durable) LFP batteries and selling them at actually competitive prices with gas vehicles and now they control 2/3 of the global EV market. Only 15 years ago only about 7% of the worlds passenger vehicles were Chinese, and you'd be laughed out of the room if you said that soon the whole world would be clamoring to buy Chinese cars.
Thanks for coming to my Ted talk
PS: we ended up getting a used id 4 for anyone who's curious. The only OG Ioniq for sale within 1000 miles sold from out from under us. We didn't really want an SUV, we even preferred driving a leaf, but there are so many used ID. 4s on the market we got it for cheaper than a leaf.