As for this seeming like an anti-car cult, consider this:

I've just invented a thing I call a horseless carriage. It will only kill 1 million people a year. Give me money.

Not only wouldn't it get funded, you'd be confined to a special prison for super villains for coming up with this bad idea. The fact that we live with such massive negative externalities that we don't make manufacturers or consumers of cars pay for is the Jedi mind trick.