The "need" for an SUV is a band-aid fix for American suburbs. The build environment really necessitates it, especially in sprawling suburbs. But again, people raise families without owning a car perfectly fine in modern European cities.
Cool observation. Also a common one. Now: how do we transition from the American model to the European one, in the face of perverse financial incentives and how government at all levels works? The detours we've already taken make that quite difficult. Pointing to a destination is not quite the same as providing a workable route to get there, let alone actually helping push the cart. It's really just kibitzing, which has always been a way to claim credit for right answers and quietly walk away from wrong ones. Risk free. A constructive approach would be to consider what role can be filled by EVs of various types, not just dump on them for not being perfect.
Sure, as you mentioned lobbying and money in politics is probably the biggest hurdle as it basically maligns most projects for social good with profits for the biggest lobbyists. Local governments have a lot of power in this regard, they're able to set parking minimums and potentially zoning for denser residential areas.
Regional support would be needed for a more comprehensive public transit options, railways, bus routes etc. Also at the regional / state level we would stop subsiding suburban communities. States often foot the initial bill for roads / water / sewage and suburbs are usually not able to self-fund for repairs needed in 10/20/30 years respectively, so they rely on denser areas taxes (mostly commercial tax) to make up for it. [1]
The financial incentives are there, denser urban areas already provide much of the tax income needed to make public services feasible and make up for the sprawl around a city that it's residents can't pay for. [2]
To your point about "detours" we've taken, sure it will be a multi-decade project but places like Amsterdam / London have a pretty good roadmap for regulating car-centric infrastructure. EVs really only exist to extend the life of an industry that's already extracted billions in profit by lobbying that car based transit was the only way to go. ICE vehicles are a massive liability in the face of an energy crisis, and the US heavily subsidies gasoline prices. In other countries this is already priced in, and that incentivizes alternative forms of transit and better designed cities.
> EVs really only exist to extend the life of an industry
That's just silly, since EVs don't burn those fuels. They exist to prolong the life of a road and housing infrastructure, which has both positive and negative aspects to it but is in any case unavoidable during what is sure to be a long transition. Again, bashing them for not being the perfect quantum leap to an ideal state is not productive. Small improvements are still improvements.
