Have you seen the price of cars? WRT "more efficient"- it has been over 40 years since 'energy efficient' became a supposed goal of the US loose requirement for automaker's and I'm not impressed with the results. There's nothing that works as a demand and if you look at cars like the Dodge Hellcat, Ford Mustang, Chevy Camaro and other 'muscle cars', economy isn''t as important as power. The Hellcat hits 14-21 MPG and with a few aftermarket parts, can reach 840 HP. That's almost six times as powerful as the 1981 Oldsmobile Cutlass I had and the fuel economy is about the same.
US automakers need to make cars more efficient- they do a pretty good job on engine reliability but the fuel use isn't great. Another aspect to how well cars perform is users maintaining them and in the US, a huge percentage of the population is too poor to spend money on their car or they spend their money on other things.
Don't expect people to move closer to the larger cities just because they need to drive in- places like Los Angeles are so spread out and the center of the city is so overbuilt that it would be impossible to pile more housing in and honestly, many people would hate living in such high population density- I know I would. Many people in the Los Angeles area drive more than an hour to AND from work- the smart ones drive more efficient cars, but there's no requirement for that.
I agree with you, but making this happen isn't easy.
