President Joe Biden sketched out his vision for the future of Americas auto industry during a visit to Detroit in late 2021 . And he couldnt have picked a more appropriate spot to do it.

He spoke on the assembly floor of Factory Zero , a plant that General Motors had just retooled in order to produce electric vehicles (EVs) and their batteries. Factory Zero sits on the site of an old Chrysler plant that during World War II supplied the Arsenal of Democracy. Now, Biden said, he wanted to enlist the auto industry in a different kind of war a war against climate change while providing reliable middle-class jobs and restoring some of the industrys lost global stature.

I want you to feel the way I feel: pride in what we can do when were together as the United States of America, Biden said. And it starts here in Detroit.

Many of Bidens predecessors made similar vows. Few (maybe none?) followed up with such a flurry of regulatory action or by signing anything as ambitious as the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). Today that law is pouring tens of billions of dollars into EV subsidies, just like Biden promised, as part of what is arguably the single biggest bet on industrial policy in recent American history.

The effect is not hard to spot. Facilities such as Factory Zero are under construction or in operation across the industrial Midwest and a new battery belt in the South. The United Auto Workers (UAW) has won the right to organize in many of these plants and just a few weeks ago secured a new contract at an Ohio facility that should help set new standards nationwide. EV sales continue to go up.

But sales arent increasing as quickly as analysts or the industry predicted . The UAW is still struggling to organize outside of the Big Three (General Motors, Ford and Stellantis), whether its at domestic challengers, such as Tesla, or foreign-owned transplants, including Hyundai. And for all the talk of American automakers recapturing their global swagger, its China that has leapfrogged the rest of the world to become the leader in EV production. Last month, Biden enacted a series of high tariffs on Chinese EVs to block them from the U.S. market.

The possibility of China capturing U.S. sales has gotten a lot of attention from former President Donald Trump, who mentions it constantly on the campaign trail, though in Trumps view, the problem isnt just whats happening in Beijing. Its also whats happening in Detroit, which, to be clear, he blames on Washington.