>>However, robots have been making cars in the US for decades now, and except for cars made at plants owned by Toyota and Honda, most US cars can't compare with foreign imports.
Skilled or cheap workforces or economy of scale create incentive elsewhere. Eliminate those variables and you can manufacture where you please.
FWIW I'm about to pull the trigger on a what I think will be the last personal vehicle I drive myself and my last powered by internal combustion. The car has a twin turbo V8 that's assembled by hand in Germany, then shipped to the buyer wherever they may be. IMHO that sort of attention increasingly will be limited to Rolls Royce style prestige, sort of like having a butler in 2018. Everything else will be assembled quicker, cheaper and more accurately by machine, ideally close to home so you can have it quicker without international freight.
"... They ne'er cared for us
yet: suffer us to famish, and their store-houses
crammed with grain; make edicts for usury, to
support usurers; repeal daily any wholesome act
established against the rich, and provide more
piercing statutes daily, to chain up and restrain
the poor. If the wars eat us not up, they will; and
there's all the love they bear us."
-- Shakespeare: Coriolanus, Act 1, scene 1
