Agree, but before Tesla electric cars were quite niche, now they're mainstream. One could probably argue that this is unrelated but there seems to be some correlation at least,
That the cars themselves are negligible is a bit unfair, Electric cars allow you to use renewable energies instead of fossil fuels- its a huge amount of energy consumed by transportation. Demand for EV car infrastructure is higher now and once built benefits everyone.
Is public transport better- undoubtedly, but Americans have infrastructured their way into a corner- they seem to fundamentally require cars for day-to-day operations and continue to make choices that force car dependence.
Space travel (in a similar way) is still needed, not just to get off this planet when we kill it (which I don't agree is a goal based in reality) but because there's absurd amounts of resources in the universe and some of it wizzes by us constantly.