It’s time for Gavin Newsom to send his electric-vehicle mandate to the junkyard.

Public support has all but broken down for the governor’s 2020 executive order that by 2035, all new passenger cars and light trucks sold in California must be zero-emission.

According to a recent survey by the Public Policy Institute of California, nearly two-thirds of state residents oppose Newsom’s EV decree.

The misgivings span all regions of California and all political backgrounds: Democrat, Republican and independent.

State residents want choice and affordability — not back-seat driving from Sacramento.

Turns out: Californians enjoy feeling virtuous about climate change, and happily support radical green restrictions when they think others (e.g., “corporations”) are paying the price. 

But when the costs land in people’s own driveways, well … their green ardor stalls out.

The truth is clear in the survey’s findings.

Large majorities of Californians think the state’s climate laws are, on balance, good (i.e., the costs are abstract). But also: Vast majorities think they, themselves, pay too much for energy.

And those motorists don’t want to shell out for juice-guzzlers of unknown cost in the future.

Of course, Newsom’s war on fossil fuels drives up not only gas and energy prices, but California’s cost of living broadly. Every climate regulation, tax or fee is passed along to residents and consumers in higher costs for food, retail goods, housing — any product or service that requires energy to move, sell, deliver or produce.

All this, for state climate rules that enrich the ruling Dems’ cronies and donors through green pork, but have near-zero effect on global temperatures — ostensibly the point of the exercise. 

What’s more, California has a history of blackouts, whether due to electricity shortages or deliberate power shutoffs by utilities whose equipment might spark wildfires. 

Do residents really want to commit, full stop and en masse, to vehicles that might stop running whenever parts of the grid go down? 

Also notable: The statewide EV mandate was enacted by fiat. Newsom issued an order, and the unelected California Air Resources Board (CARB) built regulations around it.

Neither voters nor legislators had a say in a policy shift that one air board member called “monumental” and “the most important thing that [the air board] has done in the last 30 years.”

Words like “wrong” and “arrogant overreach” come to mind.

Besides: Californians, and Americans broadly, don’t like being told what to do. It’s in neither our DNA nor our heritage to have elites like Newsom and his CARB cronies dictate what products should be available for us to buy.

The elitists should let the market decide what types of vehicles are sold here. If EVs are indeed the superior choice, then consumers will buy them without being forced to.

Some already have. Others will. And still others can’t afford them, have no way to charge them, dislike the cars’ range limitations or simply don’t want them.

Either way, Newsom’s EV mandate has suffered a collision with reality.

Instead of trying to repair the crumpled mess, he would do well to send the whole thing to the scrap heap.

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