How do you take the idea of soviet era automobiles (You can choose any color so long as it’s black) and/or Germany’s concept of the people’s car (i.e. simple, affordable yet boring) and combine that with free market capitalism & the culture of individualism in the post-American dream era where costs are prohibitive yet technology is flourishing?

Capitalist / Communist / post-industrial / post-economic catastrophe / high tech solution to the vehicle of tomorrow is a plain vanilla exterior that can be skinned.

In other words, just put a plain vanilla shell on an electric motor & enable that shell to reflect the design aesthetic of the owner. Think wearable computing for public and private transport.

plain vanilla of communism —> win/win <— individualism of capitalism

One very nice example of such a concept is WordPress — the open source blogging platform:

open source back end (Communism) —><— customizable front end (Capitalism)

Win / Win