So? If this country started right now and made the same kind of people/resource commitment to designing practical alternative fuel powerplants as we did to landing on the moon, you'd be cruising in a non-fossil-fuel vehicle inside of 10 years easy. Unfortunately, there's too much money to be made on fossil fuels in the meantime, and as sad and unfair as it is, that joke about the Golden Rule is true - they who have the gold make the rules. Big money contributors (like oil & auto companies) have billions to spend on "helping" things go their way, so things generally go their way.

But by the same token, as fossil fuels are depleted, there will be so much money to be made on providing an alternative powerplant that it'll happen in plenty of time.