A switch to electric cars which get energy from solar sources is seen by some conservatives as a vast left-wing conspiracy, but California’s Governor Ronald Reagan, still the GOP standard-bearer, was completely on board with subsidizing EVs when he first witnessed the Enfield 8000 in 1969. An excerpt follows from a 2013 BBC article.

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“In November 1969, the Enfield 8000 was shown off at the first ever international symposium on electric vehicles, held in Phoenix, Arizona, where it caught the eye of Ronald Reagan, then Governor of California.

“We took a truck across America with two Enfields on the back,” says Sir John Samuel, who was leading the delegation. “Some people just looked at them and laughed, but Ronnie Reagan was astounded, and he said, ‘Why can’t we do this here?'”

Governor Reagan offered to find a factory site in California, promising healthy subsidies and guaranteed orders. He even suggested giving the cars to all home-buyers on the island of Santa Catalina off the California coast, where the use of petrol-driven vehicles was – and still is – heavily restricted.

But Enfield Automotive’s owner John Goulandris, who was from a wealthy Greek shipping family, turned down Reagan’s offer and chose to continue production in Cowes on the Isle of Wight.•

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The original BBC report about the Enfield 8000 at the 1:15 mark: