Just as I know a little something about Google's real business (not adwords/adsense) and ad exchanges, I know a whole lot about the automobile industry and marketing related to that.
One thing that is really impeding us is 100 years of auto brand marketing.
Without that type of drilling into people's psychology we would have eliminated gas vehicles by now.
We need to focus on what cars accomplish, namely transportation, rather than what brand they are, be it Abarth, Fiat or whatever. I'm not advocating public transportation or the monorail systems like I posted in the video above. I think personal transportation is good, but not the way we're currently doing it.
I don't drive a motorcycle because it's cool. I drive it because I can go in between cars and traffic almost never stops me. There are functional reasons that people buy things and thresholds of risk.
I think most people are too hung up on ad campaigns and branding. It's the same motivating force that would push somebody(an idiot) to buy a 10 year old luxury car for the same price that they can get a new car with good gas mileage or an electric.
We need to make sure that people know that you're not a better person because you drive a luxury car. Once we have accomplished that, I think the rest will be easy.
