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I think that very few people are actually aware of the environmental and health risks associated with vehicle exhaust. Sure they may "know" that vehicle exhaust is one of the main contributors to climate change and they "know" that vehicle exhaust contains harmful chemicals (ie you should never leave the car running in a garage because of the risk of carbon monoxide poisoning). However, most people are really bad at risk analysis, so they don't really appreciate the risks of vehicle exhaust. Thus, people don't have a huge incentive to change their behaviors. In addition, until more research is done into alternative energy sources, and they are produced at a level that makes them more affordable, not very many people will make the switch from traditional cars to hybrids or electric cars, etc because they are too expensive. And yes, they are too expensive for the majority of Americans. So in order to get the public to change their car buying habits, there needs to be a clear incentive beyond "vehicle exhaust is bad" and the solution needs to be cheap.