If approximately half the cost of an EV is the battery pack I'm terrified by the prospect of a $10k car...

Yea I do want to know what the costing on this is. It's a bit hard to figure for BYD because:

(a) there's unknown government subsidies going on, and

(b) they mine and refine their own lithium and make their own batteries (also make Tesla's batteries too, I think). So their battery cost is... unusually low