Disclosure: I work for General Motors, this is solely my own opinion and experience.
> Which one returns more value to the shareholders?
I think the 'shareholder primacy' era of American capitalism has had some particularly dumb and bad effects... unfortunately I can't change that just by being angry and anxious about it. The market loves tech companies right now, which really distorts the valuation of other companies.
I think that people still vastly underestimate how difficult it is to make a physical product, how much time and attention it takes.
I saw a presentation for assembling the Chevy Cruze in Lordstown, Ohio. There was a planned market size, production volume, etc, etc. The closest it got to the estimates (if I recall correctly) was about 1/2 to 2/3 the planned production volume. After the first couple of years of production, volume dropped more.
At 1/2 volume, the plant would never make money. The fixed costs simply eat too far into revenue. The lower the volume, the longer it takes to pay off things like engineering costs - not just for the OEM (GM, Ford, etc), but also for the suppliers. Suppliers often book substantial losses for the first couple years of a new product.
> Simple cars don't make money...
They really don't make money. On the very best day, a $30,000 simple car might make $1,000 net profit to the OEM, maybe another $500 to the dealer. On a median day, the initial sale might be a small loss.
Under capitalism, there is strong pressure to move upmarket. Under communism, most people never even got the simple car, and those who did get the simple car had to wait for many years.