I saw this story a while ago. As I recall, it costs about $9 to produce the bike, so if you have to replace every year, it’s still a pretty good deal.
$9 in materials, with an expected retail cost of $20.
But you have to add OSHA safety equipment, union labor, batteries, so perhaps 2,000$ after it’s all said and done.
I guess that is cheap enough, although you can get a real bike for under $100, and so long as you don’t leave it out in the weather, it will last essentially forever.