The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) <\/span>proposed a rule<\/span><\/a> to roll back federal vehicle efficiency standards under the Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) program. The CAFE standards were initiated by Congress in 1975 in response to an oil embargo to make the U.S. less dependent on foreign oil and to save consumers money on gas by requiring automakers to develop and produce more fuel-efficient vehicles.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Manufacturers can comply with this program <\/span>in a variety of ways<\/span><\/a>, such as making more fuel-efficient gas vehicles or offering more electric vehicles. If finalized as proposed, this rule will set average fuel economy requirements back to model year (MY) 2022 standards and would increase them by 0.5% per year through MY 2026, and then by 0.25% per year through MY 2031. NHTSA projects that the rollback will lead to an industry fleetwide average of about 34.5 miles per gallon in MY 2031. For comparison, the average fuel economy achieved by automakers in 2024 for passenger cars was approximately 43.2 miles per gallon (<\/span>Table I-2<\/span><\/a>). This proposed rule would <\/span>roll back fuel economy progress <\/span><\/a>made to date and lead to increased fuel costs and more tailpipe pollution. <\/span>The proposed rule<\/span><\/a> is open for public comment until January 20, 2026.<\/span><\/p>\n Federal tax credits for clean vehicles expired, including 25E (Used Clean Vehicles), 30D (New Clean Vehicles), and 45W (Commercial Clean Vehicles, which was also used for leases). While these tax credits were initially authorized by Congress to run through 2032, the July 4, 2025, spending bill eliminated them as of September 30th. Vehicles with a <\/span>signed contract and payment<\/span><\/a> in place by September 30, 2025, are still eligible for these tax credits upon delivery.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n The <\/span>High Occupancy Vehicle (HOV) lane exemption<\/span><\/a> for alternative fuel vehicles and electric vehicles also expired. Previously, states were authorized by the FHWA to exempt electric vehicles from HOV lane requirements, allowing them to use these lanes without carrying additional passengers. The authority for this expired September 30th, and neither the FHWA nor Congress elected to extend reauthorization.<\/span><\/p>\n Hundreds of millions of dollars of appropriated funding from fiscal year 2022 from the <\/span>Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act<\/span><\/a> also expired on September 30. The current administration did not obligate appropriated funds or pay grantees the awarded funds. By holding onto the funds until they expired, the administration avoided funding Congressionally-approved community pollution-reduction programs, equity programs, and EV charging buildout, <\/span>along with many other programs.<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n The Federal Highway Administration released <\/span>interim final guidance<\/span><\/a> for the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (NEVI) formula program, which provides funding for states to build high-speed public charging networks along highway corridors across the country. The guidance is functionally the same as the existing program, with a few simplifications to funding eligibility requirements. States are no longer required to place one EV charger every 50 miles or consider equity components in the award process, along with other permitting and construction requirements. However, this guidance gives states the opportunity to restart their NEVI plans and build out more public chargers. <\/span><\/p>\n The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) <\/span>proposed a rule<\/span><\/a> that would rescind the 2009 Endangerment Finding, which acknowledged that greenhouse gas emissions cause harm to human health and the environment. This finding provided a legal foundation for the federal government to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from automobiles and other sources. If this finding is rescinded, the EPA\u2019s Clean Car Standards, which regulate vehicle pollution, could be rolled back as well.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n President Trump signed the <\/span>administration’s funding bill<\/span><\/a> into law. The bill repealed or weakened the following clean transportation investments, largely from the Inflation Reduction Act:<\/span><\/p>\n The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) released <\/span>a letter informing state departments of transportation<\/span><\/a> that the U.S. Department of Transportation is rescinding all previously released guidance for implementing the <\/span>National EV Infrastructure (NEVI) formula grant program<\/span><\/a> and ordering all state NEVI plan approvals to be suspended immediately.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n <\/b>The new administration issued the <\/span>Unleashing American Energy<\/span> executive order<\/span><\/a>, which directed agencies to pause the disbursement of all Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) and Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) funds for 90 days and submit reviews of the projects, programs, and policies to the Office of Management and Budget and the National Economic Council.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n <\/b>The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) published a final rule for the <\/span>Corporate Average Fuel Economy Program<\/span><\/a>, also known as CAFE. The rule requires automakers to increase passenger car fuel economy by 2% per year for model years 2027 to 2031. By model year 2031, this rule would increase the average light-duty fuel economy to approximately 50.4 miles per gallon. These standards are designed to complement the Environmental Protection Agency\u2019s emission standards, and manufacturers may use all available technologies, including electric or hybrid vehicles, in order to comply. This offers automakers much flexibility in how they achieve the CAFE standards.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n <\/b>The US Environmental Protection Agency announced new regulations for greenhouse gas emissions from passenger cars, known as the <\/span>Clean Car Standards<\/span><\/a>. Under these rules, automakers are required to reduce vehicle emissions across their entire fleet, which means that they can adjust the types of vehicles they offer in order to provide customers with a range of choices. The new rules apply to passenger vehicles sold for model years 2027 through 2032, and <\/span>the EPA expects the rules<\/span><\/a> to lead to an industry-wide average emissions target of 85 grams of carbon dioxide per mile. They would also meet President Biden\u2019s goal that \u201chalf of all new cars and trucks sold in 2030 would be zero-emission.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n <\/b>The <\/span>Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 (IRA)<\/span><\/a> was signed into law. It invested billions of dollars in EV and battery manufacturing, and <\/span>EV and charging tax credits<\/span><\/a>, including:\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n <\/b>The <\/span>Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL)<\/span><\/a>,<\/span> also known as<\/span> the<\/span> Infrastructure, Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), <\/b>was signed into law. It included $7.5 billion for EV infrastructure investments, such as:<\/span><\/p>\n The US Environmental Protection Agency adopted the <\/span>Endangerment Finding<\/span><\/a>, which acknowledges that greenhouse gas emissions are air pollutants under the Clean Air Act and that they threaten the public health and welfare of current and future generations. This finding was based on <\/span>Massachusetts v. EPA<\/span><\/i><\/a>, <\/span><\/i>in which the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the Clean Air Act\u2019s definition of \u2018air pollutant\u2019 should include greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide. This finding was a prerequisite for implementing greenhouse gas emissions vehicle standards.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n The <\/span>Energy Improvement and Extension Act of 2008<\/span><\/a> was enacted. This law created a new tax credit for qualifying plug-in electric vehicles, the amount of which was determined by the vehicle\u2019s weight and battery capacity. <\/span>The total credit amount<\/span><\/a> could not exceed $7,500. The credit was designed to be phased out when each manufacturer sold 200,000 qualified plug-in electric vehicles, and it was reduced to 50% and then to 25% of the original incentive during the year-long phase-out period. <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" December 5, 2025 The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) proposed a rule to roll back federal vehicle efficiency standards under the Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) program. The CAFE standards were initiated by Congress in 1975 in response to an oil embargo to make the U.S. less dependent on[…]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":132,"featured_media":0,"parent":336,"menu_order":4,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"content-type":"","inline_featured_image":false,"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","itunes_episode_number":"","itunes_title":"","itunes_season_number":"","itunes_episode_type":"","footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-14582","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nSeptember 30, 2025<\/b><\/h2>\n
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