Hence you were left behind, although I get the difference is the effort exerted. USA didn't try to compete, it refused to move or made token efforts aimed at the wrong market. USA made EVs look like luxury items, in contrast with the old, affordable oil vehicles.
my point was to emphasize that we had agency in these decisions. we didn't do our best and get beat, we purposely chose not to compete. this isn't me trying to recapture some amount of pride like the guy at your local bar who keeps insisting he could've been a bad ass in the army but he would've beaten up all his superior officers first, it's me making sure that everyone realizes that this was a conscious choice to sell out the next generation in order to pad the fossil fuel industry's already record-high profits.
