Electricity does not have to become to cheap to meter - as long as it stays priced in the vicinity of where it is now (in terms of hours worked to pay for a given number of kwh) and becomes carbon free, the electric car can be used to remove the carbon emissions from personal transport without changing anyones lifestyle an iota.

This is a Good Thing (tm) because it is much easier to build electricity generation infrastructure than to rebuild entire cities. As a matter of economic efficiency and sound urban planning, urban development should aim for high densities, but writing off the existing housing stock is wasteful and not likely to happen. The focus should be on killing coal, because that solves the problem regardless of national culture, politics, or anything else in the fuzzy realm of human factors. No one is emotionally invested in burning coal for the sake of burning coal after all, so a technocratic solution which eliminates the need should be universally adopted.