A range of somewhere between 100 and 200 miles is plenty for that. Build an EV with that kind of range using less expensive LFP batteries and you can sell it for a reasonable price. But for some reason, the industry doesn't seem to want to do that.
I would argue that the industry is doing exactly what consumers want. Range anxiety is still very much a thing, and most people don't want to have to plug their car in "every night" any more than they want to refuel their car "every day".
Also, while most people average a low number of miles per day that an EV could easily fulfill, consumers tend to want range for the exception/rare trip rather than their average trip distance. I certainly wouldn't want an EV with 200 miles of range, even though most of my driving doesn't even leave my home town anymore, because I do have the occasional trip that's ~120 miles round-trip, with hills (so more energy consumed), and there's no EV charging at the destination. I also might want to travel ~300 miles one-way a couple times a year or so, which would be incredibly annoying if I only have 200 miles of charge available.
The bottom line is that my ICE vehicle isn't at all expensive to maintain given my low overall miles driven in a given year now, and it has the range I need if I choose to take a longer trip. I'm the sort of driver that can absolutely burn through the entire tank (~450-500 miles) without taking a single pit-stop, so the "rest and charge" argument that EV types try to push doesn't work on me, either.
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