The incoming Trump administration has even more plans to delay electric vehicle adoption than previously thought. According to Reuters, which has seen transition team documents, the Trump team wants to abolish EV subsidies, claw back federal funding meant for EV charging infrastructure, block EV battery imports on national security grounds, and prevent the federal government and the US military from purchasing more EVs.
During the campaign, candidate Trump made repeated references to ending a supposed EV mandate. In fact, policies put in place by President Joe Biden only call for 50 percent of all new vehicles to be electrified by 2032 under US Environmental Protection Agency rules meant to cut emissions by 56 percent from 2026 levels.
Instead, the new regime will be far more friendly to gas guzzling, as it intends to roll back EPA fuel efficiency standards to those in effect in 2019. This would increase the allowable level of emissions from cars by about 25 percent relative to the current rule set. US new vehicle efficiency stalled between 2008 and 2019, and it was only once the Biden administration began in 2021 that the EPA started instituting stricter rules on allowable limits of carbon dioxide and other pollutants from vehicle tailpipes.
About a third of the population looks to the California Air Resources Board, rather than the EPA, to get their emissions regulations.
The so-called ZEV states (for zero-emissions vehicles) do have something closer to an EV mandate, and from model-year 2026 in these states (California, Connecticut, Colorado, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, and Washington) and the District of Columbia, a third of all new cars sold by each automaker will have to be battery-electric—assuming the EPA grants California a waiver to allow this to happen.
As with the first Trump administration, we can expect a sustained attack on California’s ability to set its own vehicle emissions regulations and any attempts by other states to use those regs.
More Tariffs
Trade tariffs will evidently be a major weapon of the next Trump administration, particularly when deployed to block EV manufacturing. Even the current administration has been wary enough of China dumping cheap EVs that it instituted singeing tariffs on Chinese-made EVs and batteries, with bipartisan support from Congress.
The Biden tariffs were justified on economic grounds as a way of defending US industry against an unfair level of state support from China toward its own automakers. The Trump team plans to use national security as the justification for its own barriers to EV imports, using section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act.
But according to the documents seen by Reuters, the tariffs on battery materials will be applied globally, something that should significantly increase the cost of a new EV. The transition team plans to allow individual countries to try to negotiate exemptions to the tariffs, Reuters wrote.
No More Tax Credit, No More Public Chargers
While the Trump team plan is meant to boost US auto manufacturing versus imports, a key tool in forcing more local EV production is also not long for this world. As we thought, the $7,500 clean-vehicle tax credit will be eradicated once Trump takes office.
But according to Reuters, the Trump transition team also plans to claw back as much of the $7.5 billion allocated for charging infrastructure put in place by Congress as part of the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022. Much of this money has not been spent, due to the lengthy timelines involved. Rather than be disbursed directly by the Joint Office of Energy and Transportation, the funds were instead allocated via the states, in the same manner as highway funding. As such, there could be significant amounts of this program that will never see completion.
One Trump team idea could speed up EV charger deployment—the incoming administration intends to do away with environmental reviews that are required for projects like charging stations.
Other rules and regulations meant to protect the public are also set to be scrapped, including one that requires all automakers to report to the government when one of their vehicles crashes while operating under partial automation, such as Tesla Autopilot. This standing order has caused plenty of grief for Tesla following more than 1,500 crashes, with multiple injuries and deaths, and Tesla’s opposition to the requirement is widely known.
Finally, the US government fleet can be expected to get more polluting. Currently the federal government is required to purchase more EVs as it replaces old vehicles, with a requirement for all light vehicles to be zero emissions by 2027. This will no longer be the case under Trump, who will also end any Department of Defense programs that are meant to purchase or develop electric military vehicles.
This story originally appeared on Ars Technica.
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