Making Cars Affordable Again: Trump Scuttles Biden’s Fuel Efficiency Standards
Of course, the environmentalists are in hysterics.
President Donald Trump has moved to roll back Biden-era fuel economy and tailpipe emissions rules, proposing more reasonable and achievable standards that also reduce the upfront cost of new gasoline-powered cars.
President Donald Trump on Wednesday proposed slashing fuel economy standards that former President Joe Biden had finalized last year, in a push to make it easier for automakers to sell gasoline-powered cars.
Trump said the move was about reversing Biden’s efforts to force more Americans to buy electric vehicles. “People want the gasoline car,” Trump said.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration proposed significantly reducing the fuel economy requirements from model years 2022 to 2031, requiring 34.5 miles per gallon on average by 2031, down from 50.4 miles per gallon (21.4 km per liter).
NHTSA is proposing to revise down the 2022 fuel economy standards and then proposing to hike them between 0.25% and 0.5% annually through 2031. In 2022, under Biden, NHTSA increased fuel efficiency by 8% annually for model years 2024-2025 and 10% for 2026.
Biden’s handlers intended to use these rules to force Americans into electric vehicles (EVs). For numerous reasons, many of which I covered at Legal Insurrection over the last 4 years, nobody was buying what the New Green Deal team was selling, especially EVs.
Joe Biden’s fuel efficiency regulations would have raised the cost of a new vehicle by $1,000.🤯
PRESIDENT TRUMP IS HITTING RESET- saving Americans $109 BILLION! 💸🚗 pic.twitter.com/dKGDK9Pif4
— The White House (@WhiteHouse) December 3, 2025
The adjustment in the fuel efficiency requirements was driven, in part, by the increasing realization that car manufacturers could not meet the unrealistic, utopian demands of climate crisis cultists. The change will result in more affordable and safer cars for Americans.
On Wednesday, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said the previous rules drove up the cost of new cars and were “completely unattainable” for automakers. He initially directed NHTSA to review the CAFE regulations in January.
The Transportation Department said the proposal is projected to save American families $1,000 on the average cost of a new vehicle and a total of $109 billion over the next five years.
NHTSA Administrator Jonathan Morrison said the move to ease the mileage standards would make the nation’s roads safer. “Newer cars are safer cars and by reducing vehicle prices, more American families will be able to afford newer vehicles,” he said in a statement.
Mr. Trump was joined at Wednesday’s event by senior auto industry executives. In a statement shared with CBS News, Stellantis CEO Antonioa Filosa expressed support for the proposed fuel efficiency rules, saying the initiative would realign the CAFE standards “with real-world market conditions as part of its wider vision for a growing U.S. automotive industry.”
The gutting of the Biden-era standard aligns with the dawning realization that the climate crisis is nothing more than a massive hoax to shift money and power into the hands of progressive activists and power-hungry, globalist bureaucrats. Of course, the environmentalists are in hysterics.
The New York Times, which recently admitted defeat in the ‘Information War’ over climate change, is in most profound grief.
Mr. Trump has aggressively repealed dozens of federal climate protections. The rollback of automobile standards comes as the administration is also lifting restrictions on greenhouse gas emissions from power plants and oil and gas wells while making it easier for fossil fuel companies to extract and burn more coal, oil and gas, the main drivers of climate change.
Environmentalists said repealing mileage standards would debilitate efforts in the United States to fight climate change. They also challenged the president’s claim that the proposal would lower costs, noting that the efficiency standards have spurred automakers to produce cars that use less gas, saving people money at the pump.
Interestingly, to pair with this news, several car companies are beefing up production in this country. Hyundai, Toyota, General Motors, Ford, and even Volvo are spending billions to expand their facilities or build new manufacturing operations.
Making Cars Affordable Again https://t.co/k9SiOfG242
— Leslie Eastman ☥ (@Mutnodjmet) December 4, 2025
Donations tax deductible
to the full extent allowed by law.
Comments
The Biden Administration intended for us to either walk or use pedal cars made from Bud Light cans.
Or use our feet like the Flintstones.
This is in keeping with the UN plan to heard everyone into communities. No car will be “necessary” and all the land will be left unused. (Don’t forget the bugs)
Can’t forget them! Eating bugs stops the weather!
“The adjustment in the fuel efficiency requirements was driven, in part, by the increasing realization that car manufacturers could not meet the unrealistic, utopian demands of climate crisis cultists”
They were unrealistic by design to force everyone to EVs. Let’s be clear they want to ban ICE vehicles everywhere.
Typical lefty approach: let’s ban it without saying we are banning it because that’s unpopular- so let’s regulate it out of existence.
NO ONE in the Biden cabal was altruistic. It was always all about the money. The “green stooges” were just being played.
A step in the right direction.
But the government should not be in the business of forcing gas mileage standards on the public. Let the market decide. The gov’t should mind it’s own business and stay out of this.
Trump: “People want the gasoline cars.”
All the way back to the Declaration of Independence, it’s not the government’s job to tell people what they should do or should want. It’s government’s job to protect their rights so that what they want, happens.
Only Trump seems to understand that any more.
How about forbidding the adulteration of gas with cornmeal? The science is a fraud, it cuts down on mileage and it clogs small engines, especially generators now needed due to an unreliable power supply?
If you can’t stand up to the farmers then pay them off.
Gasoline adulteration was never about “green”. It’s nothing more, or less, than a farm subsidy program.
Gasahol is the number one killer of small engines!!
Look at the prices of cereal and corn chips today. Why do you think that is?
The unspoken thing is that the crazy mileage requirements have already cost consumers billions. The first and most obvious place is in the cost of cars. Tiny engines turbo-boosted within a psi of their limits are expensive to build and short-lived. Then there’s reliability – did you know that GM has to recall 700,000 V-8 engines because the weight of oil specified is too light. It’s deliberately too light because this increases fleet gas mileage just enough to bump past the law. Unfortunately it also destroys bearings. New diesel truck engines are unreliable and get poorer mileage to meet new pollution standards.
Sadly it’s going to take a few years before designs based on the new standards appear on the market.
It’s good news and will really help people afford newer vehicles.
Because the price comes down $1,000?
On a $40,000 car? Not so much.
And it won’t impact used cars for at least a decade.
Another thing I would like to see addressed is features in a car being turned into paid for subscription services. BMW caught a lot of flak for trying to do that with heated seats. They were already installed but if you wanted to use them it was a monthly fee. That is asinine and manufacturers have been looking at doing it with other parts as well.
Absolutely. I bought the product, full stop. I already bring my car to the dealership for maintenance. Stop trying to nickle and dime me with subscriptions. Or, at least let my phone interface fully so I don’t have to use your substandard subscription maps (looking at you, Toyota).
One more reason to keep both my cars, one a 2007, the other a 2012, on the road as long as possible. Sure, the fuel consumption isn’t as low as new cars and they don’t have all the bells and whistles we don’t need, but they have a couple of clear advantages: We like them and they’re paid for.
.
And they work.
It is asinine 110%
My brother-in-law simply paid a Vibrant Teen to hotwire his… seat.
Good. Now revoke all subsidies to include ethanol blend requirements. If enough consumers choose it at the pump then it will be economically viable. Heck, just buy the Corn, grind it into grits and cornmeal and put it into a food box to replace cash SNAP/EBT.
Fine w/me. When we were forced into using 10% ethanol my wife’s car went from 26 mpg to 24 in one tank of gas and power was noticeably lower. Newer cars like mine don’t show this difference because they are made for the fuel blend. Choice. Give us choice, and we’ll see the market adjust accordingly.
.
Now get rid of the horrid safety BS
Collision avoidance
TPMS sensors
and thousand other doodads that don’t drive the car and make it more expensive.
OR allow budget cars. Any car retailing under 15k gets tons of exemptions.
Not just the safety stuff. ALL of the digital BS. It sure looks to me like all the manufacturers agree to put it in – which would be price-fixing, or a cartel, IMO. Bust THAT and we might get cheaper cars.
Not just cheaper, but also less complex => more reliable.
Whoever invented the start/stop “feature” should be tarred and feathered.
And if’s there’s no option to disable it, the dink who designed that “feature” into the engine controls should be run out of town – in a midwinter blizzard. The wear and tear on the engine, starter, battery, and other components negates any fuel savings.
.
Cars should be considerably more affordable than they are. But the issues are no so simple.
Assertions about the mix of ethanol into gasoline are correct. It is idiotic, expensive and counter-productive. The reasoning for it first time around was to reduce emissions in carburetor-equipped vehicles. Of which there are now very few. Requiring manure cleanup equipment for horse drawn wagons in every new car and truck is about as rational as requiring ethanol in gasoline. But requirements and subsidies do benefit the corn farmers!
Computerization of finance has made it possible for dealers to make money on car sales. GM is a finance and payments organization with a sideline in manufacturing. It makes most of its money on finance, so why should it be interested in making the best vehicles? But certainly the endless, nearly-impossible, changes demanded by the Feds make manufacture and profit almost impossible.
Consumers have gone crazy too: there is no need for 80% of the complexity of today’s cars. The high complexity also makes them impossible to repair.
An alternate take on the problem comes from a new pickup from Slate. No complexity means no cost: consumers cannot complain about features that do not exist. There are no warranty claims and no recalls from non-existent complexity. The Slate pickups have no entertainment system, no GPS, rubber floor mats, crank windows and plastic body panels with no paint! Bare bones all around, but good. Target price is was $25K, but now is $27K. GM, Ford and Stellantis could do this, but the loss in income from finance of expensive vehicles would push them into bankruptcy.
I care very little about the price impact. Particularly since it’s 2% of the price, according to new average car prices
Also, he should reduce the numbers to the minimum the law allows, out of the principle that the fed has no business setting standards like that, especially without direction from a duly passed law stipulating the limits.
Once again, he’s choosing an ok policy, but solely because it makes people cheer in the short term. I’d rather they were choices from foundational principles. (Particularly because principles aren’t directly subject to populist whim.)
Oh, and my 1987 Dodge Daytona regularly got 34+mpg driving from Colorado Springs to Fort Worth every school break. But somehow, car manufacturers weren’t meeting that standard for another 20 years?
I’d like to see used car prices come back to sanity. Cash for clunkers was, I believe, a ploy to decrease the supply of used cars and force people into debt slavery with the outrageous prices of new cars.
There are many reasons to favor older cars over newer ones, the two big ones (IMHO) being 1) older cars are easier for normal people to repair (as opposed to having to run to the dealership for the tiniest things) and 2) less surveillance nonsense with essentially forced subscriptions and digital crap thrown in, ostensibly to “improve” or “enhance” the driving experience but in reality for tracking cars/ drivers.
Car manufacturers are using complexity to require car owners to use dealers to maintain their cars. Actually, you don’t own your car – the manufacturer and the government own your car.
My oldest son is a GM Master Mechanic and with the way cars are built today you need one to repair them. What is really needed is to get all the computer chips and controls out of modern cars so they can be worked on by everyone.
Doesn’t the engine computer make it easier to analyze problems?
Plug in the diagnostic tool and the computer tells you what things are wrong.
Also: rather than a lot of analog vacuum line interconnections between components, everything pretty much connects directly to the computer.
Except you don’t get the diagnostic tool, and it’s patented so you can’t clone one.
Ken, that’s the way it’s supposed to be, and it actually was until the last ten +/- years or so. But now the manufacturers make it really hard for independent shops to get into the onboard diagnostics enough to find a problem. My local shop has some great techs who have told me how annoying it is to tell the customer they can’t fix a problem because it’s a “dealer shop only” repair. It’s another reason to hang on to my ’07 Tucson and ’12 Santa Fe. My shop and I can get into most of the systems to troubleshoot a problem using an OBD2 reader. Newer cars, not as much.
.
Yet another example why we need “right to repair” legislation.