Protecting their internal market and nurturing their native industries is how Chinese [1] products, including EVs, got to this point. Seeing this, what will Western countries do? Having forgotten how they attained their prosperity, will they open their markets and let competition decide the winner? A competition where one side's government will not allow their corporations to fail, so the 'competition' will be repeated until the correct outcome is attained.
[1] I don't mean to single out China, as no advanced economy reached its position via unrestricted free trade: James K. Galbraith has stated that "free trade has attained the status of a god" and that " ... none of the world's most successful trading regions, including Japan, Korea, Taiwan, and now mainland China, reached their current status by adopting neoliberal trading rules." - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparative_advantage#Criticis...
I don't see how the US could ever protect its domestic EV market enough to compete with China. Tesla was a leader for a while, and they've completely stagnated.
Now China has the scale and expertise to outcompete anyone. There will probably still be a market for more upscale cars like Rivian, but they will be drops in a bucket.
20 years ago you could have said the same about China - how could they ever hope to compete with US, EU, and Japanese cars that dominated the globe? Or how could the tiny island nation of Taiwan compete in semiconductors with giants like Intel and the continent-spanning USA?
[1] I don't mean to single out China, as no advanced economy reached its position via unrestricted free trade: James K. Galbraith has stated that "free trade has attained the status of a god" and that " ... none of the world's most successful trading regions, including Japan, Korea, Taiwan, and now mainland China, reached their current status by adopting neoliberal trading rules." - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparative_advantage#Criticis...