Electric vehicle advocates are bracing for the Trump administration’s anticipated reversal of the coupling more than a decade ago of vehicle fuel economy standards with EPA goals to reduce tailpipe emissions.
The Transportation Department’s upcoming rewrite of Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards — paired with the 2025 reconciliation law’s elimination of fines for not meeting the standards, rollback of EV tax credits and other reversals of long-standing emissions rules — is expected to further water down federal support for the EV market.
“All of these things combined will have some impact on the deployment of EVs in the near term,” Albert Gore, executive director of the Zero Emission Transportation Association, said in an interview. “And these are difficult investments to make.”
