Author: Dugan Flanakin
One of Donald Trump's main campaign themes was ending the federal electric vehicle mandate, which he calls a “China First” policy that taxes the power grid, subsidizes forced labor and destroys American jobs. That means rolling back subsidies and mandates from the Biden administration — but what else can he do?
The world's revolt against the EU's long-favored “one machine, many uses” strategy began in Italy, just two months after the bloc reached a tentative agreement on new car emissions laws that will ban the sale of internal combustion engines there.
Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni's government has objected to the plan as the development of a fleet of all-electric vehicles has hit the Italian auto industry with job losses. Transport Minister Matteo Salvini said cars with internal combustion engines are already using carbon-neutral synthetic fuels.
German Finance Minister Christian Lindner later asked for an exception to the EU mandate for hydrogen-derived carbon-neutral synthetic e-fuels, in which Porsche has invested $75 million. German Transport Minister Walker Wessing insists that anyone serious about climate-neutral transport must rely on all available options and does not understand why anyone would want to “ban certain technologies”.
Auto industry veteran Andrew Graves says e-fuels could be the answer to keeping older combustion engine cars on the road. He also cited a significant risk that there may not be enough electric vehicle charging stations or battery manufacturing plants to meet demand by 2035.
European automakers find themselves losing the battle against cheap (and subsidized by Xi Jinping's government) Chinese imports and declining consumer interest in pure electric vehicles. Cancel cluster It was reported in July that Porsche was scaling back its sales targets for electric vehicles due to a 25% sales drop, admitting that “the transition to electric vehicles will take longer than we thought.”
In the United States, a Gallup survey found that the number of Americans who would not consider buying an electric car has increased, while the number of people who have considered buying one has declined. President Trump has vowed to make it difficult for the Chinese to sell electric cars in the United States, and European governments have imposed tariffs to try to protect their automakers from total collapse.
General Motors has delayed the development of new electric vehicle models and delayed the opening of its electric truck plant, while Ford has shut down production of its Lightning EV truck after admitting it lost more than $47,000 per electric vehicle sold.
While many automakers are still building electric passenger vehicles, there is a growing consensus that battery electric is not the best choice for 18-wheelers and other heavy-duty trucks, or even the ones millions of people use to transport larger vehicles. Pickup trucks with small loads.
Peter Rawlinson of Lucid Motors, which makes luxury electric vehicles, told Axios that internal combustion engines (rather than battery electric vehicles) are the only realistic option for pickup trucks. Electric pickups “are the wrong product, so we're seeing companies not making a viable product by trying to make electric pickups.”
Even before Trump's victory in November, automakers were already cutting back on EV production commitments made to appease the Biden administration (and presumably states like California that had passed strict EV mandates).
Toyota announced in early October that it would delay production of its first U.S.-made electric vehicles at its Georgetown, Kentucky, plant until 2026, although the company remains committed to building an electric SUV plant in Princeton, Indiana, and a lithium-ion battery plant in North Carolina. .
Hyundai Motor started producing the Ioniq 5 electric crossover in October at a massive factory in Blaine County, Ga., with the help of a battery factory joint venture with LG Energy Solutions that will build six vehicles for Hyundai, Kia and Genesis Electric cars. The company expects to produce 300,000 electric vehicles per year, with a maximum annual production capacity of 500,000 vehicles based on demand. The plant will also be able to produce hybrid vehicles, which are much higher on the Trump administration's priority list.
But what will happen to the EV market if subsidies and mandates disappear? The Biden administration is clearly wasting billions of dollars on a so-called campaign to build an electric vehicle charging network, and so far, ultra-fast chargers have largely been a phantom. Car insurance rates for electric vehicles are soaring after spontaneous fires, and growing power outages even in states with electric vehicle mandates are another stumbling block to consumer confidence.
President-elect Trump criticized hydrogen-fueled vehicles during his campaign, saying they were prone to tragic explosions, but automakers from Europe to Asia have brought hydrogen-powered engines and other new technologies to market or are developing them. .
While Britain's Jaguar Land Rover calls for “more effort” to make buying and owning electric vehicles more attractive, the global electric vehicle industry is experiencing a decline in production and sales – a decline that could be exacerbated by Trump's removal of subsidies.
Still, the UK government is just as determined, if not more determined, than the Biden administration to foist EVs on a reluctant public. Although short-lived Chancellor Rishi Sunak extended the deadline for the complete phase-out of internal combustion engines from 2030 to 2035, the country is still far from its target of a minimum of 22% electric car sales in 2025 and 80% in 2030 Remote (only 3.5%).
The deeper problem with trying to replace a 125-year-old technology for a public that currently owns a billion internal combustion engine vehicles is that electric vehicles run on a completely different platform that doesn’t fit well with other technologies — even with hybrids The power engines are also very different. The same goes for hydrogen, and so does e-fuel. However, some governments still believe that resistance is futile—even if a wave of opposition rolls in, their mandates will prevail.
A recent article in wired There is speculation that President Trump will partially abandon his pledge to “end electric vehicle mandates from day one,” if only to avoid alienating Tesla's staunch supporter and CEO Elon Musk. Will he agree with the Heritage Foundation's call to level the playing field for internal combustion engine vehicles by ending electric vehicle tax credits and other subsidies and abandoning increasingly stringent fuel economy standards?
Trump has made clear that he believes electric vehicles have a place in the U.S. auto mix, while harshly criticizing the market for internal combustion-friendly hydrogen vehicles (although Tesla now plans to launch its first hydrogen car in 2026).
To be sure, Democrats obsessed with an all-electric future will try to block any efforts by the Trump administration to overturn Biden's mandate, and some Republicans may join them. In addition, some electric vehicle facilities are located in states that Trump needs to win votes in 2024, and it will be difficult for politicians to vote to prevent federal funds from flowing into these states.
In the coming months, the Trump administration is likely to follow four principles in taking action against the auto industry: (a) imposing tariffs to protect domestic auto industry jobs, and (b) opposing those that shift the playing field toward broadly unpopular electric vehicle technology Tilt mandates. market development.
Duggan Flanakin is a senior policy analyst at the Council for a Constructive Tomorrow, where he writes on a variety of public policy issues.
This article was originally published by RealClearEnergy and provided via RealClearWire.
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