It's us, basically. When gas prices went down in recent decades and then climbed back up, especially as the economic recovery from the Great Recession proceeded, US companies were already quitting manufacture of little gas-sipping hatchbacks. Oh they were still manufactured in like Mexico but only sold in Europe. All that most people in the USA wanted any more were tank-like SUVs and trucks, and the people who haven't switched to EVs, that still seems to be what they want -- and those things are still gas hogs no matter the advertised boost in miles per gallon. Maybe it's because we drive so aggressively in the USA and figure the more metal caging that's around us in case of a crash, the better.
The other thing is that the USA has never seriously promoted use of public transportation and so has never invested enough in it to make people seriously consider the tradeoffs in convenience and expense; given a choice, we opt for "convenience" of private transportation EVEN THOUGH we have to put up with potholes in the roads, traffic jams that are unbelievable, taxpayer expense of freeway lane expansions that only alleviate traffic issues for a year or two... and the insane cost of housing one's vehicle in an urban environment, never mind juggling the rules about where you can even drive a car in some cities.
True absurdity: Tack on a gas hike to all that and we complain about THAT instead, even as we celebrate an dubiously inalienable right to own a car and go where we want when we want to.
