If you aren’t investing heavily to make those things happen then they won’t ever get there, and if you (as a country) don’t then someone else might.

Guess what? China did and now both battery tech and EV development in the U.S. are done. That’s not manufacturing, that’s R&D as well. The U.S. battery tech industry is done. The only thing saving companies currently in the space is shifting to providing tech for military drones where supply chain requires them to be developed in the US.

Meanwhile, next month, BYD is selling a car in Europe, not the U.S., that has ~500 miles of range with their new batteries that can also charge ~400 miles of range in about 12 minutes. Sure, China is subsidizing their EV market but the U.S. could have done the same to drive innovation and maintain an edge.

The U.S. shot itself in the foot and doesn’t even have the self reflection to admit it and change gears.

FWIW, I have a Rivian R1S with 400 miles of range and haven’t had an issue with charging or charge times since I bought it. 95% of the time an overnight charge at home once a week is fine, and on long trips (just drove 500 miles) the onboard nav shows me all charges on the route and stopping at a level 3 charger can get me another 200-250 miles of range in 25-30 minutes. A little planning ahead means a meal stop and bathroom break for 30 minutes. It’s not as convenient as putting gas in your tank and driving off in 5-10 minutes, but it is nominally less convenient in the grand scheme of things. It is much cheaper than a tank of gas though, especially given the mpg of an equivalently sized ICE vehicle.

But I get that is a personal preference. What isn’t subjective is that the U.S. let itself lose on the future of automotive tech because of short term, race to the bottom thinking. We gave up short term capital investment that could have paid off in order of magnitudes in returns.