Summary
New Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy has ordered an immediate rollback of U.S. fuel efficiency regulations, targeting stricter standards set by the Biden administration.
Duffy argues that weakening emissions rules will lower car costs and expand consumer choice.
The memo also seeks to revoke California’s right to set its own air quality standards and criticizes EV subsidies.
This move aligns with Trump’s broader push to dismantle climate policies, including a recent ban on federal purchases of zero-emissions vehicles.
Environmental groups are expected to challenge the changes.
To be fair, CAFE needs to be massively redesigned or ripped up entirely. The way it currently works is by tying the required fuel economy with the footprint of the vehicle. The bigger the vehicle, the less efficient it has to be. But the curve is so steep that it makes it virtually impossible to build small compact cars that fall within these regulations. Notice how cars keep getting bigger and bigger with every redesign? This is the main reason why. The Honda Civic of today is massive compared to 20 years ago. Sure, crash safety plays a part, but CAFE is the main reason. Many automakers aren’t even selling cars in the US anymore, it’s all SUVs and pickup trucks, because these are easier to design for CAFE standards.
It’s also making cars less reliable. Gone are the days of robust, 500,000 mile engines. Most vehicles have downsized engines with turbochargers for better efficiency, but turbos are finicky and delicate machines that are expensive when they fail. Basically all engines use EGR (exhaust gas recirculation) to improve efficiency, but that introduces dirty air into the intake. Direct injection instead of port injection is commonplace now too, where fuel is sprayed directly into the cylinder rather than just before the intake valve where it can wash over the valves and keep them clean. Combine EGR with direct injection and you have a recipe for fouled valves that don’t seal and can potentially require an engine tear down to clean by hand. Add finicky electronic control for fuel injection, valve timing, ignition timing, etc. and you have a recipe for unreliable engines, everywhere.
Vehicles that are less reliable get scrapped earlier, but this doesn’t get factored in when discussing reducing CO2 emissions. The emissions of producing cars isn’t exactly negligible. There has to be a middle ground between efficiency and reliability, it just doesn’t make sense to squeeze out minuscule increases in economy at the cost of halving an engine’s lifespan. And it doesn’t make sense to deny us the small and efficient cars that the rest of the world gets to have, because CAFE says they’re too inefficient, while a gas guzzling monster pickup truck is perfectly okay.
Using more fuel will increase the dmands for fossil fuel, meaning more bribes for Trump.
You know what would really lower car costs and expand consumer choice, removing all tariffs on foreign car manufacturering.
Clearly it’s not actually about cost or choice.
The automakers might like making more efficient cars. That’s a selling point when buying a new car.
I promise no company will change gears on this. It will cost too much money to retool/configure the parts now, to just have to implement it again in (fingers crossed) 4 years. It’s probably cheaper to just keep everything the same.
They also wouldn’t be able to export a single car to a any country with fuel efficiency regulations.
I don’t know, it wouldn’t be that hard to produce an empty catalytic converter. The same part, but without the expensive bits on the inside. That would save a lot of money and increase pollution a whole bunch.
However one big flaw in the plan, number must go up! No company ever passes on savings to the customer, they will just make a crappier cheaper product and sell it for the same price or more even.
Plus manufacturers sell cars in other countries too, who might have stricter regulations and so they’ll end up having to make two of the same vehicle for different markets which is obviously not going to happen.
CA going to pull a Trump and set their own air standards regardless.
They already do. CARB. California Air Resource Board.
A lot of auto makers already use carb standards because it’s such a huge state. It has its own issues like certain aftermarket parts need to be CARB approved such as intakes for whatever reason.
Inb4 “states rights” actually aren’t that important and the start federalizing deregulation.
CA can easily control what vehicles are allowed on their roads.
Seeing that handshake the other day, I am looking forward to Newsom rocking Trump with an uppercut if he tries to stop the state taking care of itself.
Brilliant! MAGA morons will love this but will be deeply confused when their home and car are on fire in the near future.
Fucking idiots
Rolling coal as policy.
At this point, I’m waiting for them to demand lead to be added back into gasoline so our grandchildren get to repeat the cycle of stupidity all over again.
Surely the rampant air pollution won’t affect their lungs!
opens a can of perri-air
Type the noise he is making, I dare you
Rhaaaaaagggh-teehehe
Duffy is a fucking moron
So what will happen to these vehicles with relaxed emission standards when an actual competent forward thinking administration gets in office and undos this?
If the Democrats had a collective spine, they’d be declaring that any bullshit that Trump pulls now will be rescinded as soon as their party gets back in.
they will be grandfathered-in, probably.
like with catalytic converters, high center brake lights, seat belts and air bags, etc. older cars didn’t have them, but new ones built after they were each required, did.
