Comment by tpm

It's a complete non-issue.

"compact manual transmission cars" means cheapest cars you can get. Nobody loves them, but they were cheap. They aren't cheap anymore and if TCO points to a small EV, people will buy that one.

If my memory servers right, in 2008 you could buy a new Dacia Sandero for under 6000 euro in our country (EU). It's over 13600 right now for the current generation.