I have no dount that if we had the same national resolve to develop extremely efficient cars that we did to land on the moon we’d be able to do so. It may or may not end up being electric, it may be something completely beyond our current imaginations, it may be some materials evolution, it may be a solar/electric/hydrogen hybrid. But getting to the moon and back was a technical accomplishment beyond what any of us can possibly understand. I have no doubt we could accomplish it.
But there’s one fundamental problem: we don’t have the national resolve. There’s no cold war anymore. We won.