First, don’t blame the vehicle. It is a tool that might be just what Los Angeles needs to cope with inversions. Electric vehicles are also very good as airport shuttles and for other locations where short, repetitive routes are the primary use. Some may even be fun to drive (except when they catch on fire).

But do not believe for a minute that the plan is to replace each of the 275 million gasoline- and diesel-powered vehicles on the road today in the United States with electric vehicles (which today comprise just 1 percent of the U.S. fleet). Worldwide, there are nearly of 1.5 billion vehicles on the road today, but only 6 million are EVs. That’s less than 0.5 percent. And most of them are in China, which controls the supply of batteries and electronics for EVs.

U.S. auto factories today manufacture about 9…