What might come first is something along the line of reduced / zero tolls for electric vehicles (im thinking something like London's congestion charge)
Something like that would be interesting for sure. I know there's already toll roads and toll bridges that waive all or most of the toll for electric and sometimes CNG or LNG vehicles.
Another thing that I have also seen that can really help uptake is free electricity. I actually recently watched a Vox video where the guy was talking about how many Teslas are on the street there, and he asked around, and apparently recharging is free in places like Oslo which is a major cost-to-own benefit when gas prices are high.
Of course the fact there are major subsidies and tax breaks for such vehicles means the cars themselves are cheaper to buy already
There are few places that really make it easy for you. In Germany there's no legal lower boundary for the size of a living space, so at least we have that going for ourselves.
The US has major zoning problems in general. the Zoning laws were basically built around enabling larger houses so not only do a lot of places have minimum building sizes, most areas are also specifically zoned for single family detached housing. not only does this shut out tiny houses, it's also resulted in something called missing middle housing where you can't build medium density structures such as duplexes, so you're stuck between looking for a house in a neighborhood or an apartment in a large complex on the main streets.
@Phuncz out of curiosity, what construction methods have you looked at? Is wood frame housing even a thing there?
One thing to note: the inside walls of houses actually take up a not-insignificant amount if internal space. Obviously if you have wire runs and piping, you need some spaces inside the walls, but in spots where the wall is empty, it's a good space saver to put other stuff into the wall (eg. only drywall one side and use the space between the studs to build a shallower bookshelf), though your contractor might not appreciate it as much.