President Donald Trump said he has approved new fuel economy standards that scrap Biden-era targets and will cut new-car prices by thousands, a move green groups say will raise pump costs.
On Saturday, Trump announced on Truth Social that he had signed off on new Corporate Average Fuel Economy standards, framing the change as the end of what he calls the Biden administration’s electric vehicle mandate and a direct path to cheaper cars built in America.
Newsweek reported that the final rule was not immediately released with the announcement, so it was not yet clear whether the approved standards match an earlier December proposal from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration or include further changes. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy pointed to a “major victory” for auto workers coming Monday, without spelling out whether that post referred to the same standards Trump cited.
Trump cast the decision as a break from rules he says drove up costs and pushed manufacturers toward electric vehicles. He thanked Duffy and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick for advancing the administration’s auto agenda, and said executives at General Motors, Ford, and Stellantis had told him they want to expand U.S. manufacturing.
"These new Standards will take the waste out of building cars in America. That means LOWER PRICES, saving families thousands on a new, beautiful, and safe car,"
Trump wrote. He added that plants and jobs are returning to Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, South Carolina, and across the country.
Earlier administration work set the stage. In June 2025, Duffy published a rule titled “Resetting the Corporate Average Fuel Economy Program,” arguing the Biden administration had illegally factored electric vehicle adoption rates and compliance credits into calculations of maximum feasible fuel economy under the 1975 Energy Policy and Conservation Act.
By August, the administration had signaled it was preparing sharply lower requirements than Biden’s. Duffy said the focus should be vehicles consumers actually want. In December, NHTSA floated a proposal known as “Freedom Means Affordable Cars.”
That December plan projected a fleetwide average of roughly 34.5 miles per gallon by 2031, compared with about 50.4 mpg under Biden-era standards. NHTSA estimated the earlier proposal would cut the average upfront cost of a new vehicle by about $930. Duffy said the package would save Americans $109 billion over five years and about $1,000 on the average price of a new car.
The New York Post reported the administration is moving to lock in that direction, rolling federal fuel-economy requirements toward the 34.5 mpg average by model year 2031 and giving automakers freer rein to build the gas-powered cars, pickups, and SUVs buyers still demand. Congress has already removed fines for missing mileage targets, ended federal tailpipe greenhouse-gas limits at the EPA, repealed EV purchase tax credits, and moved to block California from forcing all new passenger sales to be zero-emission by 2035.
Federal tax credits for new, used, and commercial electric vehicles acquired after September 30, 2025, are gone, including the consumer credit of up to $7,500 on qualifying new EVs. That one-two punch, looser mileage floors plus no purchase subsidy, changes the economics for both dealers and shoppers who never wanted a mandate dressed up as “standards.”
Trump and his allies have long described Biden-era rules as an EV mandate. The prior rules did not order consumers to buy electric cars, but they ratcheted mileage targets so high that manufacturers had to lean hard on EVs and compliance credits to pencil out. Duffy’s June reset called that approach illegal under the 1975 law that still governs CAFE.
California’s separate push for zero-emission new passenger sales by 2035 faces congressional pushback and ongoing legal fights. For national buyers, the practical question is simpler: will the next pickup or sedan cost less at the lot?
Environmental lawyers did not wait for the Federal Register notice. Atid Kimelman, an attorney at the Natural Resources Defense Council, told Newsweek the rollback would hit drivers at the pump.
"With Americans struggling to afford gasoline that is more than $4 a gallon, the Trump administration is going to force them to pay more at the pump,"
Kimelman said. He added that oil companies would get a windfall while families hand over more of their paychecks to fill the tank.
NHTSA’s own earlier modeling put numbers on the trade-off. The December-style proposal was projected to raise fuel use by roughly 100 billion gallons through 2050, add about $185 billion in fuel spending, and lift carbon dioxide emissions by about 5 percent. Those are agency estimates, not campaign slogans, and they sit beside the agency’s own finding that sticker prices fall when the mileage floor drops.
National regular gasoline has recently averaged around $4.48 a gallon, with California far higher. Critics of the rollback lean on those pump prices. Supporters lean on the thousands of dollars families never send to the dealer when regulators stop designing cars for a market that does not exist.
A White House spokesperson, asked Saturday for comment, pointed reporters to Duffy’s post on X. Newsweek sought comment from the Department of Transportation, Duffy, and NHTSA; responses were not detailed in the initial coverage. Duffy’s line was blunt: a major victory for America’s auto workers is coming Monday.
"a major victory for America's auto workers is COMING MONDAY,"
he wrote, without tying the teaser explicitly to the fuel-economy package Trump described.
That gap matters for process, not for direction. The administration has spent months signaling lower CAFE targets, ending EV credits, and clipping California’s special authority. Trump’s Saturday posts put a presidential stamp on the same agenda: less regulatory waste in the build, lower prices on the lot, and manufacturing jobs back in the industrial Midwest and South.
Whether the final numbers land exactly on the December 34.5 mpg path or shift again, the policy choice is clear. Washington is no longer treating electric vehicles as the only acceptable future of the American driveway.
Families who want a safe, affordable car, not a climate lecture, just got the kind of regulatory relief Detroit has been asking for.
