It's not a characteristic of US automakers but of the status quo in any competition. The status quo power wants to keep things the same - that's how they got there, that's how they are making money, and any change destabilizes things and 'wastes' money: you're already (selling cars), what will you gain by innovating?

The revisionist power wants to become status quo. They need to beat the status quo power and they won't do it following the status quo's rulebook. They look for anything that might differentiate them, make them appealing to even narrow groups - they are trying to get a foothold and grow from there. They are cool, innovative, and disruptive, people think.

As soon as the revisionist becomes status quo, they adopt the status quo behaviors. Look at formerly revisionist SV.