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By Commanding Waves of New Electric Vehicles, Is President Biden the New King Canute ?

A new EPA order is intended to force automakers to produce electric vehicles so that they’d account for two-thirds of sales in 2032 — roughly 10 times their share in 2022.

Are we watching a replay of King Canute commanding the waves to recede? That thought occurred to me while reading about the Biden administration’s latest step in advancing the president’s 2021 goal of having half of all new autos be electric by 2030.

The analogy isn’t exact — current thinking is that Canute knew his courtiers were wrong when they said he could stop the incoming tide. And the king was apparently in his 30s, with no sign of cognitive impairment, at that moment by the seashore. But consider it anyway.

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