Actually it seems to me that electric cars are a more energy-efficient solution than high-speed trains. We're not that far away from the point where this become

Actually it seems to me that electric cars are a more energy-efficient solution than high-speed trains. We're not that far away from the point where this becomes practical. A train might use less electricity per passenger-mile than a car when it's full, but when it's not full its efficiency goes down pretty quick because you're hauling a lot of metal around. Also there's the fundamental inefficiency of trains: they always go from somewhere that isn't exactly where you are to somewhere that isn't exactly where you want to be, on some schedule that probably doesn't exactly match what you want to do.