As part of his “Unleashing American Energy” executive order, signed Monday night in the Oval Office, Trump specifically demanded the elimination of “the electric vehicle mandate,” ordered a “level regulatory playing field for consumer choice in vehicles,” and directed the termination of “state emission waivers that function to limit sales of gasoline-powered automobiles,” as well as the elimination of “unfair subsidies … that favor EVs.”
Though the finer details of how this will be implemented aren’t clear in the executive order, there has never been an actual electric vehicle mandate. The rules under Biden’s Environmental Protection Agency would have required a gradual reduction in fleetwide average carbon emissions by up to 56% by 2032. To meet that goal, electric vehicles would have needed to make up 35% to 56% of new car sales by 2032, up from 8% in 2024. According to the Biden administration, the rule would have cut more than 7 billion tons of carbon dioxide emissions through 2055, or “roughly equal to four times the emissions of the entire transportation sector in 2021.”
Trump’s executive order also appeared to target the Biden administration’s fuel economy standards. Back in June, the Department of Transportation’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration issued a rule that raised the fleetwide average fuel economy of passenger cars for model years 2027 through 2031 by 2% each year — that is, to 47 miles per gallon in 2026 and to 50.4 miles per gallon in 2031. (The current average is around 39.1 miles per gallon.)
Republicans overwhelmingly opposed the rules, known as the Corporate Average Fuel Economy, or CAFE Standards, arguing they “effectively mandate EVs while at the same time forcing the internal combustion engine out of the market.” The GOP has insisted that the CAFE Standards should be “market-driven” rather than “limit availability of and access to vehicle and fuel options.” Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation’s playbook for the Trump administration, called for a fuel efficiency standard of 35 mpg.
CAFE Standards have long been a political football between administrations; Trump previously rolled back President Barack Obama’s standards, while Biden’s NHTSA brought even stricter rules.
Monday’s executive order additionally appeared to target the EPA’s waiver for California to set its own emissions standards under the Clean Air Act in its language targeting “state emission waivers that function to limit sales of gasoline-powered automobiles.” Trump previously revoked California’s right to include greenhouse gases in its emissions considerations and barred other states from adopting its criteria. Biden reversed that decision in March 2022, on the grounds that the Trump administration’s withdrawal was based on a flawed interpretation of the Clean Air Act. Since then, California released its Advanced Clean Cars II standard, which 11 other states have adopted and requires all new cars sold by 2035 to be zero-emission.
It had been no secret that the California waiver would be a target of the incoming Trump administration, despite the program being a secret profit center for Tesla and supported by Elon Musk. California has also quietly been working to Trump-proof its standards, reaching an agreement recently with Stellantis (the parent automaker of Chrysler, Jeep, Dodge, and Ram) to comply voluntarily with its electrification mandates through 2030. (As my colleague Matthew Zeitlin has noted, the nationwide EPA rules for tailpipe emission reductions “follow a different model than the California standards,” and are not an electric vehicle mandate.)
By directing the EPA to revoke the California waiver, Trump has started a process that could lead to the Supreme Court. Last month, the Justices declined to consider whether or not California has the right to set its own aggressive tailpipe standards, but if Trump indeed attempts to rescind the waiver, it will likely face further legal challenges.
Taken together, the “Unleashing American Energy” executive order seems designed to deliver on Trump’s frequent campaign attacks on EVs on the 2024 campaign trail, where he argued that “under Biden’s electric vehicle mandate, 40% of all U.S. auto jobs will disappear.” Heatmap’s own investigation found little evidence to suggest that making electric vehicles will result in fewer jobs. Trump’s tune on EVs had changed in recent months, however, as he grew closer to Tesla CEO Elon Musk.
It’s true, also, that executive orders are not the automatic rule of law; many of the policies will face time-consuming new rulemaking processes or legal challenges. More clarity about what the “Unleashing American Energy” order does precisely, and how it will be implemented, will become clear in the weeks and months ahead.
