8999 euros that's very good cargo e-bike territory. I think that's naive to expect car in the same price range.

It's not the 90s. Once you put it on finance, it's often cheaper than a monthly rail pass. Depending obviously on where you are and how often you travel. And also far cheaper than doing the same trip on taxis/uber even just a few days a month.

If you can't afford a new car, just buy a second hand one?

This is why "financing" and "second hand" exist.

That said, if the EU car industry falls over completely*, there's no longer a reason for protectionist trade rules, and the EU then gets the benefit of cheaper Chinese cars.

* Short-term, Trump's tariffs and the significance of the US as an export market to several major EU producers are bad; long-term, China's actually really good at this and out-competing all western production, US and EU. Just like the chicken and egg, which comes first of "governments stop protecting the industry because the industry is important" and "the industry stops being important because the government stopped protecting it" is… well, "stop assuming all eggs have to contain chickens": there's plenty of ways either could fail independently of the other, but when it fails, the mutual support goes with it and it stays down.