California Governor Gavin Newsom has repportedly signed an ambitious executive order Wednesday that would ban the sale of new combustion-engine vehicles in the state starting in 2035, the Desert Sun reports.
The order is part of a package of policy changes aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions as California deals with a rash of deadly wildfires.
The executive order would not prohibit Californians from owning gas-powered vehicles, nor from selling them on the used car market. It only applies to new vehicle sales in the state, Newsom said.
Banning the sale of combustion-engine vehicles follows the news earlier this year that California would require all commercial trucks and vans sold in the state to be zero-emission by 2045.
In total, California is the first state in the US to move to prohibit the sale of nearly all fossil fuel-burning vehicles in its borders.
Till date, 14 other states have adopted its progressive zero-emission vehicle program for passenger vehicles, which was launched in the early 1990s and has spurred automakers into developing hybrid and fully electric cars.
Numerous European countries have already imposed laws that regulate the sale of gas-powered vehicles and lay out incentives to increase the number of electric and zero-emission ones. Earlier this year, the Canadian province of British Columbia passed legislation aimed at ending the production and sale of fuel-burning cars.
