JOEL KOTKIN: Electric Car Mandates: The Latest Frontier in the Elites’ War on the Middle Class.

California is working overtime to prove something that is obvious to most middle-class Americans: Electric vehicle mandates are something of a scam.

A week ago, California announced it would ban the sale of new gas-powered cars by 2035—only to beg residents this week to stop charging their electric cars for fear of breaking the power grid amid a massive heatwave.

This is the untenable future that California’s green agenda promises. California Governor Gavin Newsom’s decision to eliminate gas cars over the next decade represents an enormous bet on a single, increasingly pricey technology which will assuredly raise basic costs to middle and lower-income Californians in the decades ahead. And it places the once proud auto industry at the mercy of China, which dominates the market for electric vehicle (EV) components and the raw materials that go into them.

Indeed.