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.

The analogy was prompted by the Environmental Protection Agency’s order last week regulating tailpipe carbon dioxide emissions of model year 2027 to 2032 cars, SUVs and pickup trucks. It was clearly intended to force automakers to produce electric vehicles so that they’d account for two-thirds of sales in 2032 — roughly 10 times the 6% share they accounted for in 2022.