Trump Approves Fuel Economy Rollback, Undoing Biden EV Rules

President Donald Trump said Saturday he has approved new fuel economy standards, reversing former President Joe Biden's stricter rules that were designed to accelerate electric vehicle adoption in the United States.

The rollback kills one of the auto industry's most consequential regulatory mandates. Under Biden's standards, automakers would have had to raise the fuel efficiency of their passenger cars and light trucks to roughly 50 miles per gallon by 2031. Those rules were built to push manufacturers toward EV production and sales.

Trump cast the change as a win for both carmakers and consumers, though his administration has not publicly detailed the final standards.

"These new Standards will take the waste out of building cars in America. That means LOWER PRICES, saving families thousands on a new, beautiful, and safe car — Far better than the Environmental Monsters that we were building heretofore," Trump wrote on Truth Social. "Every Manufacturer, from General Motors to Ford to Stellantis, has called me wanting to build here, and now they can!"

The policy shift fulfills a campaign promise. Trump pledged during the 2024 race to rescind federal policies that encouraged or subsidized electric vehicles.

The Corporate Average Fuel Economy standards, known as CAFE, date to 1975. Congress created them in the wake of the oil crisis, and administrations have periodically tightened them since — almost always in the direction of greater efficiency. Saturday's announcement breaks that five-decade pattern.

The exact numbers remain unknown. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy has said the final standards will be sharply lower than the Biden-era requirements, according to the source report. The administration has not yet published the detailed rule.

For automakers, weaker standards translate into more freedom to build what sells. Pickup trucks and SUVs carry far higher profit margins than sedans and compact cars, but they burn more fuel per mile. Under the Biden rules, manufacturers faced mounting pressure to offset their truck-heavy lineups with efficient and electric models.

EVs also become less attractive as a compliance tool. Automakers can now meet federal requirements without selling large volumes of electric cars. Still, the shift does not end EV programs across the board. General Motors has said it will continue building electric vehicles regardless of the regulatory change.

The three companies Trump named — General Motors, Ford and Stellantis — all lobbied for relief from the Biden-era targets, according to Trump's post. Their U.S. lineups remain heavily weighted toward trucks and SUVs, the segments most constrained by the 50-mpg requirement.

The announcement leaves open questions the administration has yet to answer. The final fuel economy numbers have not been released. It also remains unclear how the new standards will interact with separate vehicle emissions rules and with state-level regulations, particularly California's, which the source report does not address.

What is clear is the direction. The 2031 target of roughly 50 miles per gallon is dead. In its place comes a standard Duffy has described as sharply lower, giving Detroit room to keep building the high-margin trucks and SUVs that dominate American showrooms — and removing a central regulatory pillar of Biden's EV push.