Strategically this gets really obvious when you look at the financial model. A rapidly depreciating asset that has utilization of <10% is kind of insane, but Americans have managed to pull it off. Many families even have 2 of them! You need wide open spaces, no public transit, and cheap power for them to even be financially feasible/desirable, and the automotive industry has had to work really hard to kill public transit, the country has had to go to war several times for cheap power, and as people migrate from rural to urban settings the wide open spaces have been replaced with commutes from hell.

Cars are probably going the way of planes in the future -- hobbyists will operate them, wealthy people will have luxury models, and most people will just buy time in one. Self-driving technology is the nail in the coffin but it's probably happening without that.