Trump Administration Slashes Fuel Economy Targets to 34.5 mpg

The Trump administration on Monday will release new fuel economy standards that cut the projected fleetwide average for light-duty vehicles to roughly 34.5 miles per gallon in the 2031 model year, down from 50.4 mpg projected under Biden-era rules.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration laid out those figures last December. The move relaxes regulatory requirements for automakers to control pollution from gasoline-powered cars and light trucks.

President Donald Trump previewed the change Saturday on his Truth Social account, saying the less stringent mileage requirements would "take the waste out of building cars in America" and save families "thousands on a new, beautiful and safe car," while boosting auto production in the U.S. The president has repeatedly pledged to end what he falsely calls an EV "mandate," referring incorrectly to President Joe Biden's target that half of all new vehicle sales be electric by 2030. No federal policy has mandated that automakers sell EVs.

The rollback is the latest in a series of moves unwinding Biden-era vehicle policy. Since taking office, Trump has relaxed auto tailpipe emissions rules, repealed fines for automakers that miss federal mileage standards, and terminated consumer credits of up to $7,500 for EV purchases.

Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy confirmed Saturday on X that the changes would be announced Monday. The White House, the Department of Transportation and NHTSA could not immediately be reached for comment on the details of the new standards. General Motors, Stellantis and Ford Motor — maker of the top-selling F-150 pickup — also could not be reached for comment.

The administration and the automakers have argued the new rules will increase Americans' access to the full range of gasoline vehicles they need and can afford. The timing is awkward on price. The average new car in America sold for $50,089 in August, crossing the $50,000 line for the first time since last December, according to Kelley Blue Book data. The national average price for a gallon of gasoline stood at $4.47 on Sunday, up from $4.09 a month ago, according to AAA, as Washington's conflict with Iran disrupts global fuel flows.

EV demand is already softening. EVs accounted for 6.5% of new vehicle sales in February, down from 7.4% for all of 2025, according to the automotive research group Edmunds.

Environmental groups attacked the revised standards within hours of the news. Dan Becker, director of the Center for Biological Diversity's Safe Climate Transport Campaign, said the final rule "ignores the feasibility of clean technology and the millions of fuel-efficient cars already on the road."

"Trump is tanking sensible mile per gallon standards at the worst possible time for consumers, who are getting hit with sky-high prices at the pump," Becker said in a statement. "Consumers will pay the price for these reckless rollbacks while Trump's Big Oil and Big Auto buddies reap the short-term profits."

Katherine García, director of the Sierra Club's Clean Transportation for All campaign, vowed the group would fight the rule and warned the loosening of fuel standards would "make driving more expensive too."

"Less fuel-efficient cars mean more gas burned, spending more at the pump, and dirtier air in our communities," García wrote in a statement.

The stakes are quantifiable. When the 2024 standards took effect, NHTSA estimated they would save 14 billion gallons of gasoline from being burned by 2050. The agency also found that while new fuel-efficient vehicles cost more up front, savings on gasoline over the lifetime of the car or truck would more than offset that premium.

Without the standards, cars in 2035 could produce 22,111 more tons of carbon dioxide per year than under the Biden-era rules, along with an extra 90 tons a year of deadly soot particles and 4,870 additional tons a year of smog components such as nitrogen oxides and volatile organic compounds.

Mileage standards — the corporate average fuel economy, or CAFE — have been in place since the 1970s energy crisis, and automakers have gradually improved fleet efficiency over that time. Monday's release sets the stage for a legal and political fight over whether that half-century trajectory now bends toward cheaper, thirstier cars.