Article from For Liberty by Norm Leahy.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom has unveiled a plan to end the sale of new gas-powered vehicles in the state no later than 2035. Newsom’s plan is intended to further reduce the state’s greenhouse gas emissions.

The proposed rule would not ban people from owning gas-powered cars or selling them on the used car market. But it would end the sales of all new gasoline-powered passenger cars and trucks in the state of 40 million people.

California already has rules mandating a certain percentage of new car sales must be electric or zero-emission vehicles. This rule, if implemented, would make California the first U.S. state with a plan to phase them out completely.

The announcement comes as a leading manufacturer of electric cars, Tesla, wrestles with a network outage and possible hack of its system that has locked tens of thousands of drivers out of their high-tech autos:

Tesla is experiencing a complete network outage that has hit its internal service and customer mobile app a day after the company lost $50 billion in its market value due to its failed ‘Battery Day.’ 

The mobile app holds a digital key and only owners who have a physical version have been able to access and drive their vehicle – leaving those without stranded.

Sources told Electrek that Tesla’s internal systems are also down, making it impossible for staff to process deliveries and orders.

California’s electric grid has come under severe stress in recent months, as a heatwave combined with wildfires forced major electric producers to institute rolling blackouts.

Image Credit: By Henri Sivonen from Helsinki, Finland (flickr: California State Capitol) [CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons