The year of the gas guzzler, it seems, will soon be upon us.
On Wednesday, president Trump announced plans to drastically lower fuel efficiency standards for new cars and pick-up trucks, the New York Times reports, claiming the move will save over $100 billion over the next five years and lower the average price tag of new vehicles by $1,000.
But both symbolically and in actual effect, the move would be firmly putting Biden era environmental policy in the rear view mirror, ditching regulations and consumer incentives to encourage the adoption of electric vehicles.
Head honchos from America’s Big Three gushed about the plan. “As America’s largest auto producer, we appreciate President Trump’s leadership in aligning fuel economy standards with market realities,” said Ford CEO Jim Farley, per the Associated Press. Stellantis CEO Antonio Filosa praised the action as helping “realign” fuel efficiency standards “with real world market conditions.”
The plan continues Trump’s pattern of giving massive concessions to automakers and the fossil fuels industry, along with his broader conviction that climate change is a “hoax.” Under the new plan, car companies would need to achieve an average of 34.5 miles per gallon in the 2031 model year across their entire fleet, down from 50.4 miles per gallon that the Biden-era regulations would’ve required.
That 50 miles per gallon would have been a high bar for gas-powered cars to achieve. The point of setting it so high was to encourage automakers to sell more EVs, which would drive down greenhouse gas emissions. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, transportation is the largest source of greenhouse gas emissions in the US. In 2022, the US emitted over 6.3 billion metric tons of the stuff.
Per the NYT, the Biden administration estimated that its stringent fuel efficiency requirements would save $23 billion in fuel costs and prevent more than 710 million metric tons of carbon dioxide from being emitted by 2050. Failure to meet the efficiency standards would result in hefty fines. Trump eliminated the fines this summer, and ended a program that provided tax credits up to $7,500 for buying EVs. Now, the rules that those fines were supposed to be enforcing are going on the chopping block, too.
Trump claims that the move will help lower the cost of new cars, which have been surging since the COVID-19 pandemic crippled supply chains in 2020 and never went down even as manufacturing returned to normal. In September, the average price of a new car surpassed $50,000, a record high. It remains to be seen if the relaxed regulations will help drive prices down, especially as Trump’s whirlwind tariffs will make it costlier to import the car parts that all automakers are dependent on, not to mention that less fuel efficient cars will cost more to fill up.
“From day one I’ve been taking action to make buying a car more affordable.” Trump said at the White House event, per the AP, surrounded by some of the auto industry’s top executives.
In addition to capitalizing on Americans’ outrage over rising costs, the administration also appears to be trying to sell the move by cashing in on nostalgia. “This rule will actually allow you to bring back the 1970s station wagon,” transportation secretary — and acting NASA administrator — Sean Duffy said Wednesday on CNBC, referring to a class of vehicles that got MPGs that barely surpassed single-digit territory. “Maybe a little wood paneling on the side. We can bring back choice to consumers.”
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