I think driving in a Model S to give you a sense of where mainstream $20,000 electric cars will be in 10-15 years will give you a much better idea than a $5,000 Chinese electric car that's probably slightly better than a bicycle will.
The "electric" part of the car is maybe 50% or more of an EV cost, and it will be affected by a "Moore's Law"-like law (but with a 2x improvement in 5-10 years instead of 2), and most of the other 50% is stuff like huge high quality wheels, leather materials and all that "luxury" stuff. Drastically reduce that stuff to $20,000 gas-powered car "luxury" levels, and then extrapolate where the "electric" side of the car will be in 10-15 years, and I think you'll get pretty close to a Model S-like driving experience on a much cheaper car.
To give you an analogy (I know, again with the iPhone, but I think they have more in common than not) what you're saying would be more like trying out a $100 "touchscreen smartphone" in 2007 and saying "Wow these suck - they are even worse than regular smartphones because they work so much more slowly having to power that big resolution and those graphics".
So your experience then wouldn't be an accurate prediction of how touchscreen phones, even $100 or $200 ones, let alone the $600 ones, will be in the future, because in 2007 you needed quite expensive components to provide a "good experience" with a "touchscreen phone".
The original iPhone that cost $600 gave you a much better idea of how touchscreen phones will be 8 years later, because now even $100 touchscreen phones have better specs and work better than the $600 iPhone did back then, and can do a lot more, too.
That's why the Model S should give you a much better idea of how $20,000 EVs will be in 10-15 years than a $5,000 EV does today.
The "electric" part of the car is maybe 50% or more of an EV cost, and it will be affected by a "Moore's Law"-like law (but with a 2x improvement in 5-10 years instead of 2), and most of the other 50% is stuff like huge high quality wheels, leather materials and all that "luxury" stuff. Drastically reduce that stuff to $20,000 gas-powered car "luxury" levels, and then extrapolate where the "electric" side of the car will be in 10-15 years, and I think you'll get pretty close to a Model S-like driving experience on a much cheaper car.
To give you an analogy (I know, again with the iPhone, but I think they have more in common than not) what you're saying would be more like trying out a $100 "touchscreen smartphone" in 2007 and saying "Wow these suck - they are even worse than regular smartphones because they work so much more slowly having to power that big resolution and those graphics".
So your experience then wouldn't be an accurate prediction of how touchscreen phones, even $100 or $200 ones, let alone the $600 ones, will be in the future, because in 2007 you needed quite expensive components to provide a "good experience" with a "touchscreen phone".
The original iPhone that cost $600 gave you a much better idea of how touchscreen phones will be 8 years later, because now even $100 touchscreen phones have better specs and work better than the $600 iPhone did back then, and can do a lot more, too.
That's why the Model S should give you a much better idea of how $20,000 EVs will be in 10-15 years than a $5,000 EV does today.