But what about Tesla? It managed somehow to compete with Toyota, Honda, etc, although it had to create a new market (market of electric cars) to do it.
So while Tesla has definitely driven innovation here, there are still MAJOR hurdles to them being globally competitive.
Further it took Billions and someone like Elon Musk to be able to get even this far, so in that context if even Musk and tons of government dollars can't get there then it's safe to say nobody can.