FORCING INNOVATION:

The order, which directs the California Air Resources Board to craft a phase-out plan that would ultimately require 100 percent zero-emissions personal use and dryage vehicles in the next 15 years, is an attempt to push consumers in the nation's largest car market toward electric vehicles in hopes of reducing emissions that most scientists say contribute to climate change.

Other agencies will be directed to help create zero-emission vehicle charging stations, and the order will also mandate medium- and heavy-duty trucks to be zero-emission by 2045 where feasible.

"Of all the simultaneous crises that we face as a state...none is more forceful than the issue of the climate crisis," Newsom said. "What we're advancing here today is a strategy to address that crisis head on, to be as bold as the problem is big."

Fifteen countries have implemented similar policies, while nine states, including New York, currently follow California's ZEV standards.

The Newsom administration estimates the move would cut greenhouse gas emissions by 35 percent and nitrogen oxide emissions by 80 percent. 

Tesla CEO Elon Musk said on Tuesday that it would take an estimated 15 years of all-electric sales to eliminate most internal combustion engine cars from the road. Zero emissions vehicles include battery-electrics as well as vehicles that run on hydrogen fuel cells.

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