California just started the clock on a future that a few years ago would have been unthinkable: dealerships full of nothing but zero-emissions cars.
On Wednesday, Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, ordered regulators to phase out the internal-combustion engine and ban the sale of all new gasoline-fueled cars after 2035. With that, California became the first state in America to impose such a prohibition and delivered the biggest jolt yet to automakers already under pressure to give up fossil fuels and deliver a new generation of electric vehicles.