> Wan—a Germany-based fuel-cell engineer at Volkswagen-Audi earlier in his career—convinced leaders more than 20 years ago to bet on what became NEVs, selling this leapfrogging of overseas carmakers as a way to boost economic growth, tackle China’s air pollution, and reduce its dependence on oil imports.
    > 
    > “The primary motivation for China to push for EVs was energy security,” says Russo. “Second was industrial competitiveness, and a far distant third was sustainability.”

Lots of reasons why the US failed to stay ahead, but I have to wonder how big of an effect the US oil and petroleum industry has had on causing EV development and deployment in the US to stagnate by killing policy and government initiatives to spur R&D of EVs over the years.