Trump’s dislike of electric vehicles makes gas cars more expensive

This story is original Featured on Mother Jones and part of the Climate Desk Collaboration.

As President Donald Trump sees it, environmental regulations that try to improve efficiency and address climate change will only make products more expensive and perform worse. He has long blamed efficiency regulations for his frustrations about things like toilets and shower heads. He began his second term in office to “unlock prosperity through deregulation.”

But there is at least one big way that American businesses and households may pay more, not less, for the president’s anti-environmental moves.

If you’re in the market for a car, you’ve probably noticed: Cars are becoming more expensive. The average sticker price of a new vehicle topped $50,000 for the first time in September, Kelley Blue Book reported.

Not only have they become more expensive to purchase; Cars are becoming more expensive to own. For most Americans, gasoline is their largest energy expenditure, amounting to about $2,930 per household per year on average.

While a more efficient dishwasher, light bulb or faucet may have a higher price up front — especially as manufacturers adapt to new rules — cars, appliances, solar panels and electronics can pay for themselves with lower operating costs over their lifetime. Trump’s agenda of suddenly rolling back efficiency rules has made it harder for many industries to do business while raising costs for ordinary Americans.

No one knows this better than the US auto industry, which has been teetering between competing ecosystems for more than a decade.

President Barack Obama has tightened vehicle efficiency and pollution standards. In his first term, Trump eased these restrictions. President Joe Biden reinstated and consolidated them. Now Trump is reversing course again – leaving the $1.6 trillion US auto industry unsure about what turn to take next.

Organizational injury

In July, the EPA began rolling back the foundational legal basis that allows the agency to limit climate pollution from cars. Without it, the EPA has much less authority to require automakers to make cleaner vehicles, hampering efforts to reduce one of the largest sources of carbon emissions.

Trump’s Transportation Secretary, Sean P. Duffy, said in a statement over the summer that these moves “will lower vehicle costs and ensure the American people are able to buy the cars they want.”

But in reality, this shift may have the opposite effect. This is because when rules change every few years, automakers struggle to meet current standards and cannot plan for the future. The Automotive Innovation Alliance, a trade group representing companies like Ford, Toyota and Volkswagen, sent a letter to the EPA in September saying the administration’s moves and elimination of incentives for electric vehicles mean that current auto pollution rules put in place under Biden and extending through 2027 are “simply unachievable.” The Trump administration responded by eliminating any penalties for violations, but the industry is already planning for a post-Trump world in which the rules could change radically again.

Because it takes years and billions of dollars to develop new cars that comply with more stringent rules, automakers prefer to keep regulations in place one way or another. Each rule change adds time and expense to the development lifecycle, which is eventually incorporated into the vehicle’s price tag.

The rule change is also troublesome for electric car makers, whose models are gaining momentum both in the United States and around the world, even as the Trump administration ends tax incentives for electric vehicles. Trump is making things more difficult by withdrawing support for domestic battery production that would help American auto companies manufacture electric cars.

All of this is a huge headache for the industry. “Especially in the last six months, I think ‘chaos’ is a good word because they’re getting hit from every angle,” said David Cook, senior associate director at the Center for Automotive Research at Ohio State University.

All this uncertainty makes cars more expensive to buy and operate, with more costly consequences for people’s health and the environment in the long run.

How are Trump’s policies costing drivers more?

As the government relaxes efficiency targets, progress will stall and car buyers will be stuck with cars that cost more to run.

Energy Innovation, a research organization, found that eliminating vehicle exhaust standards could cost households an additional $310 billion by 2050, primarily through increased spending on gasoline. Rolling back the standards would also increase air pollution and shrink the job market for electric vehicle manufacturing in the United States due to lower demand.

EPA fuel mileage rating for large SUVs.

Photography: Dr. Lentz/Getty Images/iStockPhoto

Even the Trump administration’s analysis of the effects of rolling back EPA greenhouse gas regulations found that his moves would lead to higher gasoline prices due to increased fuel consumption from less efficient vehicles.

“Repealing these standards in particular would set America back decades,” said Sarah Baldwin, director of electrification at Energy Innovation.