The Trump administration said Wednesday it is removing a Department of Energy provision that for more than 20 years allowed EVs to be counted at artificially high fuel economy values, making it easier for automakers to meet federal efficiency targets.
The provision allowed an electric vehicle with an energy-equivalent rating of around 30 mpg to be scored at approximately 200 mpg in a manufacturer’s fleetwide CAFE average — dramatically inflating the apparent efficiency gains from each EV sold.
CAFE standards, established by Congress in 1975, require automakers to meet minimum fuel economy averages across their entire fleet of new vehicles.
The law originally authorized a fuel content factor for liquid and gaseous alternative fuels such as ethanol and compressed natural gas under 49 U.S.C. §32905.
When the DOE finalized rules for calculating EV fuel economy in 2000, it extended that same multiplier to electricity — even though Congress had never explicitly authorized the approach for electric vehicles.
In March 2024, the Biden administration issued a final rule that retained the fuel content factor through model year 2026 but would have gradually phased it out by 2030.
The Trump DOE is now going further than the court required by removing the fuel content factor entirely from its calculations and signaling additional revisions to come.
In the final weeks of 2025, NHTSA reset CAFE standards to exclude EVs entirely from compliance calculations and proposed new targets of 34.5 mpg by model year 2031 — down from the Biden-era target of approximately 50 mpg.
Congress eliminated civil penalties for CAFE noncompliance through the One Big Beautiful Bill Act in July 2025.
End of EV Incentives
The administration has also stripped federal consumer tax credits for EV purchases on September 30 and moved to revoke California’s longstanding waiver to set its own vehicle emission limits.
In February, the EPA proposed repealing the 2009 greenhouse gas endangerment finding, a move that would remove the legal basis for all federal vehicle emissions regulations.
Ford CEO Jim Farley said recently that EVs’ share of the US new car market could fall from roughly 10% last year to 5% in the near term.
Speaking on an earnings call last week, as the company posted its largest quarterly loss since 2008, the CEO stated, “I think the customer has spoken. That’s the punchline.”
Official’s Exit
In late January, the administration also removed Elizabeth Cannon, the official who led efforts to finalize rules banning Chinese connected vehicles over data security concerns at the Bureau of Industry and Security.
Cannon resigned under pressure from senior officials, according to Reuters.
The rules she helped finalize, which prohibited transactions involving connected vehicle hardware and software linked to China or Russia, had been considered a cornerstone of the previous administration’s approach to automotive cybersecurity.
The removal came weeks after President Trump invited Chinese automakers to build factories on American soil.
