Top comment in the article, from “XXX XXX”:
The factory is not state-of-the-art. It was founded 55 years ago, when labour and ground in Brussels were cheap. The inexpensive variants of the Rabbit (Golf) were assembled there from delivered parts, there is no pressing plant. But times have changed. Belgium is now rich and especially Brussels as the headquarters of the EU. In Brussels, labor is scarce and land is very expensive. There is no such large contiguous area in the middle of Brussels again. It is obvious to close this factory and sell the property expensively.
Other commenters in the article explain that the inability to press parts like body panels mean this location is an assembly line only, and seem to imply this is not how most modern auto factories operate.
It seems like there are more factors at play here than just the vehicles being too expensive to have a broad market. The headline in a lot of places seems like it’s just going to be that EVs are too expensive and will kill the auto industry.
I find it annoying how many car manufacturers seemed to look at Tesla’s early success with the Model S and seemed to only find the lesson as, “oh, we can sell $80k+ cars to people when they’re electric?”, like they could just charge people more by selling electric cars instead of considering how large the market is for expensive cars. I might pay a little more for an electric car than a gasoline car, but it looks like my savings by charging at home would only be ~$1,000/year, so figuring I’d keep a purchased car 6-8 years I’d probably only increase my budget by $5k just to be conservative on the savings, or less if I have a shorter loan.
EDIT: clarified that fuel savings are per year, since I forgot to include the time frame.