A new Bloomberg report echoes something we’ve been hearing since the election: that the upcoming second Trump administration will slash fuel economy standards for new cars and trucks, according to sources familiar with the matter.
The most recent fuel economy requirement imposed by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) was for automakers to average 50.4 mpg across their fleets by the 2031 model year, which was imposed in June 2024.
Additionally, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has its own set of mandates requiring a limit on tailpipe emissions falling from 170 grams of CO2/mile in the 2027 model year down to 85 grams/mile for 2032 and later. “The new standards will ensure pollution-emitting vehicles are cleaner while allowing companies to decide how to meet these standards sustainably and most effectively,” EPA Administrator Michael Regan said of the rules in March 2024.
Both of these standards are likely on the chopping block when the White House comes under new management in January. When Trump talks about an “EV mandate,” he’s referring to regulations like these that effectively require car companies to have a mix of electrified vehicles in their lineups to meet such high standards for efficiency and emissions.
The rhetoric from Trump and his team comes amid an industry-wide slow-down in ambitious plans for EVs. GM CEO Mary Barra said this summer that the EV transition will take decades, Cadillac changed course on its plan to be all-electric by 2030, Audi said it’s “flexible” on an EV transition in July, Ford canceled plans for electric 3-row crossovers in August, Toyota scaled back its EV production target in September, and similar headlines keep coming.
As GM Authority has reported since the election, a mix of rumors and official statements indicate that the next Trump administration could freeze fuel economy standards, kill the federal EV tax credit, and loosen regulations on autonomous cars.
Comments
Good. These regulations have gotten out of hand and are destroying the industry. I don’t know if eliminating the tax credit completely is the answer. It can be restructured to include only US built vehicles or give all US made vehicles a tax credit regardless of propulsion system.
Moves like this are anti-Elon but then it looks like he’s in the midst of a major bromance. Makes zero sense.
Good!
Tesla is a special company that pretty much created the EV market. They’ll survive without unsustainable and unnecessary government intervention. They might even be stronger without it. Ford, GM, and especially Stellantis are counting on these artificial market creation mandates to create demand for their products, demand that wouldn’t exist without these EPA regulations.
Makes perfect sense. If the buying public isn’t ready to fully embrace all EV then loosening the Draconian standards set by the current admin will tie in rather well. Giving the customer choices is the best option and everybody wins. If the EV catches on and gets more popular the greenies get their way. Continued efforts in reducing emissions of ICE will also help. Those that want to go in between have many hybrid and PHEV choices. Let the market decide!
He also needs to take back any authority that was given the Ca Cafe board and do it permanently. Crazy CA cannot dictate to the rest of the country what we do.
State’s rights.
Ehdit0r – maybe if the emission laws were passed by the elected legislature. CARB is full of appointed members who are not elected. So there fore their emission standards that become law is illegal.
This is pretty much spot on. The laws in the EPA have been restructure and reinterpreted by appointed Bureaucrats.
What others are missing only China with their government subsidies for auto makers can make EV cars easily.
These emissions laws are feeding them and killing global mfg not part of China.
Well I’m not sure these States rights don’t violate the Interstate Commerce clause.
I concur. Furthermore, if the States want to do their own thing and not follow Federal law. Then they don’t get Federal funding.
only if federal monies are not collected.
How is this a win for consumers?
We should all want better fuel economy for ICE cars.
When gas prices shoot up (which is a guarantee), driving a vehicle with 20mpg becomes very expensive to fill up.
I don’t think very many people will be thinking to themselves “well, at least I ain’t driving an EV” when they have to pay hundreds of dollars to fill their tanks every time they have a long journey.
Say what? If the customer has numerous choices how isn’t that a win? How is loosening up too aggressive emissions standards a bad thing? You do know that tighter standards often mean lower MPG on ICE vehicle rights? Notice that many vehicles for 2024/2025 have lower ratings than just a few years ago. Thats mainly because of tighter emissions standards. Going even tighter will result in even lower mileage or possible drive-ability issues or goofy transmission programming. So if gas prices go up and stay up the consumer would have the choice of ICE, hybrid or PHEV. That is a nice place to be
Remember that whenever you complain about the fact that automakers aren’t offering anything but trucks and SUVs in the US.
The anti-freedom crowd stomps their feet and demands that you agree with them about 100% of everything. It’s weird and legit mental illness.
John, sounds like you’re referring to the same people that want to save democracy.
Tailpipe emissions and fuel economy are not diametrically opposed. Vehicle weight, drag, and powertrain efficiency (not to be confused with tailpipe emissions) have the biggest impact on fuel economy. Exhaust aftertreatment has the biggest impact on tailpipe emissions.
Who do you think is paying for these regulations? Hint: it’s not the government or the corporations. It’s us- the average price of a new car rose $10k in the past four years due to these ignorant and shortsighted regulations
And Trumps tariffs will add another $10k to the price. But that’s what you voted for so quit your whining.
I’m not whining. I only buy vehicles assembled in the United States. I’m all for tariffs- combined with tax incentives- if it means production is repatriated to the US and gm’s US plants run at 100% capacity again.
News flash even if car assembled in U.S. parts come from over the world. Most cars part content U.S. maybe 50-60 pct. These tariffs will affect prices in all cars.
This is a way for the GM dead-enders to drive the company into bankruptcy just to own the libs, in the end. The rest of the world is going lower emissions if not zero-emissions; if you have your way and the company is dumb enough to listen, they’ll be limiting themselves to only one big market, which is not a place a company of GM’s scale can survive long-term.
The European car industry is bleeding jobs and profits due to these asinine regulations. Social unrest usually follows when people lose their jobs.
The EU has their own standards and regulations. Any changes to EPA requirements are independent of what is done in Europe.
True, but we see what COULD happen here. People take losing their jobs rather personally
Good finally, it’s over, we can finally go back to the v8’s to the v16’s again, ev’s and others will always have their place.
Once again, so much ignorance in (most of) the comments.
Cut off your nose to spite your face. All while the rest of the world moves on.
Move on then.
Haha. Move on.
Your closed minded self at it’s best.
Things like this are exactly what the country is demanding and why he was elected. We want choices, not to be mandated into things by the WEF and hedge funds.
Look this is where you need to be fully informed and not emotional on this topic.
Here is the cold hard reality.
Yes the regulations have passed up the technology. This was why automakers were going EV. You can only cut so many cylinders.
But forcing EV on the public and 3 cylinder engines is crazy. No one should have to step back in range and travel times.
No one wants bad air but these technologies need more time and once they get there they can be chosen by willing buyers. We had 120 years to develop ICE but less than 30 for EV.
Now rolling back these regs will help but we have a major issue. CARB States.
The SCOTUS ruled states can set their win emissions standards. They do not have to follow the EPA.
So you have up to 15 state’s that can set their own standards under CARB regulations. That my friends is 44% of the market roughly. No the automakers still need their sales.
Moving forward don’t expect major changes to ICE. We will have an election in 4 and 8 years from now that can reverse these changes. But it will buy automakers more time.
As for EV they will still need to prepare cars yo sell in these states. GM is in a good place as they have duel lines. Two Blazers, Two Nox etc that are gas and EV. They can sell both. Companies like Ford have little and others have less even lacking the money to supply EV models.
We will see more mergers and more failures. This is far from over but this will help.
So stop with the wild ideas of V12 engines and killing the environment. This will be a political foot fall and we can only hope these folks at Carb come to their senses.
The CARB standards will be signed away via executive order. States do not have the right to set their own standards due to the commerce clause. They have the option of following the national or CARB standards due to some asinine loophole in the EPA act not surprisingly passed during Richard Nixon’s (a Californian) presidency. Let California spend the millions of dollars to defend it.
This already sent to the Supreme Court and they ruled that states can set their own rules. But there is some. Pending cases to. E heard.
Even if overturned automakers will still try to do both as they can’t risk just not having viable iCE and EV.
This is a global market.
Now your talking.
if manufacturers stop selling vehicles in carb states, it would not be long before the states are not carb states any longer. simple math.
We knew this was what Trump planned, but it’s totally ridiculous. Our country’s leadership should be squarely behind NEVs so we stay competitive with other nations that are subsidizing their auto industries far more aggressively with long-term domination in mind. We need to get our country off fossil fuels and stop wasting tax money subsidizing them (especially with our military). Sunsetting the $7,500 incentives is fine by me—the lease loopholes for foreign manufacturers are inappropriate, and I’d rather see substantially increased gas taxes as a DISincentive—but we need to give U.S. companies a chance to adjust after they invested billions in EV plants. All this will mean is they have to lose more money to sell what they’ve already produced. How does that help our country? The incentive should be gradually reduced to zero. Incentives have also been very successful in encouraging new battery production in the US, made with local materials instead of Chinese-sourced ones. The auto manufacturers need consistent guidance so they know what targets they’ll need to meet instead of constant political back and forth. We should also be making substantial investments to reduce the number of long-haul trucks on the roads and cargo planes in the air by moving as much cargo as possible to (preferably electrified) rail.
With any luck, the manufacturers will shelve START/STOP technology . In my 57 years of driving, nothing has irritated me more than this to say nothing of the wear and tear on starters, etc. I understand it was developed in Europe.
Agree 100%. I have been driving and working on vehicles for 50 years and when my wife’s Nox “dies” at the stoplight it still sends a chill down my spine and for an instant my mind flashes the question, “will it restart?” It’s the stupidest technology out there.
Well I would not expect a ton of changes to what we have just slower decline to where we were going.
The Auto stop was done here to gain EPA credits they are off cycle credits and they need them to keep the power and engines we have.
These systems hurt nothing. Just uninformed web fodder. They are just annoying to older drivers.
No they use very good starters of a quality never used before. To this point I have yet seen this system fail unlike the cylinder drop. Now they have had issues in lifter v 8 engines not DOHC.
I have it on one vehicle. To be honest I hate it but got used to it. I make a game of stopping light enough on the brake so it will not shut off. Or I just hit the button. No big deal if it adds 50 hp they would need to take away to meet emissions with no credits.
There’s no accounting for stupid… and the US is clearly suffering from an epidemic of stupid. Pathetic.
China will eat the world’s lunch. We go backward. Oil will run out, we need to lead with alternatives. This does not benefit the US, it will make us a slave to China and other countries moving on without us – not to mention taking care of our planet and creating jobs at the same time.
PS Elon is on board because this will kill off the competition. Remember, they get richer and we work for them until we drop – that is their plan. Get educated people.
There’s enough oil under our feet in this nation to last at least 200 years- and that is only the known reserves. EVs thusfar have proven to be a job killer for GM and Stellantis as well as most of the brands in Europe
Thank you, f*** china, tell them to free tibet
these requirements were unobtainable in the 1st place. people should be allowed to drive what they want to drive. there will be no high fuel prices, if we drill all the oil in the usa. car companies are still going to push for better mpg’s and hybrids will still be a thing because their performance and fuel benefits
Make America Great Again!!! I love living in this country and can’t wait for the bright future!!
If you don’t like it, MOVE AWAY!!!
Just like all these so called celebrities are supposed to do. I’d help you move too, I have a 2018 Denali with a mighty tuned 6.2L that can haul the mail and anything you have to get out.
Of course the clown is gonna do what he wants. Any vehicles built in usa wont be able to be sold anywhere else because of emission requirements. He will cause most companies to actually shut down production because they won’t be able to export anything made. No wonder he went bankrupt several times
US built cars that are exported are modified at the factory for international sales.
Where is Bob Lutz when you need him? Trump rhetoric? Who writes this stuff? G.M. has gone Woke, will their new commercials mimic Jaguar’s? If they could only figure out a way to mate a Quadrajet with a Lithium Battery. In all seriousness G.M. desperately needs a “Car Guy” at the helm. Innovation, performance, competitive spirit, team building, strategic planning, tactics, Esprit de Corps, new product development and Corporate identity filter down from the top. Its just not there any more. Just take a look at the U.S. Buick product line. Remember the Wildcat, Electra 225, Grand National, what happened? Until I see some decent product introductions from the General I’ll keep my Bonneville SSEI and Grand National.
Let the chronic bronchial melting snowflakes move to Caliphatefornia .
Long trip in our 2020 XT5 with luggage V6 35.5 mpg highway , good job for an ICE …
This is a recipe for the US to have older tech in less useful vehicles that cost more and are more expensive to maintain, while the rest of the world has cheaper, more functional and easier to run vehicles. Consider the UK, strict fuel economy regs, strict enforcement of speed limits and laws on reckless driving, strict driving test standards…….and it’s way cheaper to buy and maintain and insure a car there, a sharp contrast to 30 years ago when it was terribly expensive to have a car there. I guess if the Republicans want to discourage vehicle ownership they’re going the right way about it.