Kleiner Perkins made a bet on this in a company called Value Vehicle. It did not make it simply because it arrived at the end of the ICE world and didn't have a electric mobility plan. When I think about this space, I look at the increasing amount of EV's and more specifically autonomous EV's. This means that eventually we will get to a vast majority of vehicle passenger miles in autonomous EVs which will translate into fewer vehicles on the road and much lower car ownership. Think about rides at 1/10th the cost and 1/10th the number of vehicles on the road. Most of these are going to be fleet vehicles and will be designed to last 1 million miles. So in short, the current market dynamics can solve this. I agree that greater durability and lowering cost is necessary, but the market will be shrinking with the exception of last mile transport. See ultracheap EVs below...

There are a ton of ultra cheap neighborhood EV's produced in China. While they aren't ultra durable, they are super cheap. If you're thinking about ultra simple cars, think about the green space between a full size car and a motorcycle. Lots of interesting stuff going on in that area.

On the micromobility side, the Ola scooter is a potential Honda super cub successor.

The initial business plan for Tata Motors was to provide a dirt cheap ultra simple "first car" in India. I don't know that they ever did it but it was a great idea/plan.

Ownership of such a vehicle isn't the only way to provide access to transportation -- supporting some form of community-based transportation cooperative might be a better way to achieve the goal of enhanced access to transportation where it is really needed.

I like this and I think that EVs present the opportunity to build vehicles that are much more modular.