Because of the war effort, the civilian concept of the automobile was never developed. During the war the fuel and materials were needed for weapons. Unlike in our timeline where America showed up at the tail end to pick the winner, there was no "Winner" of this timeline's World War. They just developed a sincere distaste for technology and the sheer number of ingenious ways it was used to kill people.

The technologies of the automobile were developed. But mostly when people in this world think of an automobile it's either a military vehicle or delivery truck.

The time when Ford would have been developing the Model T (1908) is dab smack in the middle of the World War. So he was off industrializing something war related. My argument is that after the war, there simply wasn't the budget or interest in developing cars as we know them.