Electric Cars will Save Us?

Suppose that Vancouver became the North American capital for electric vehicles. It would be great, right? Everything would be better! Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson tweets:

inspired by low/zero emission vehicles at car show today. we must be north amer capital for electric vehicles!

If overnight every car in Vancouver became electric (or even some magic hypothetical car that runs on nothing and produces no emissions) the city would not change. People would still drive their cars around at 60+kph while talking on cellphones, and the city's number one priority would continue to be the automobile. Yes, I know that Vancouver professes something different (City Council has set a list of transportation priorities in the following order: pedestrian, bicycle, transit, movement of goods, and private automobile) but take a look around.

I may have said this here before, but: we basically live in a car-dominated dystopia. The number of deaths from car crashes in Canada is of the same order as deaths from breast cancer (3000 vs. 5000 per year). There are no special coins produced by the Canadian Mint to raise awareness of car crashes, though.

Walk around your neighbourhood some time and try to look at it through the eyes of someone from 100 years ago. Every single piece of ground where parking is not prohibited is occupied by an idle car. Think about that. Does it seem strange to you? Would any of this change if the fuel the cars use was changed?