Donald Trump is a little bit over a month away from becoming the President once again, so it seems like a good time to look at just what his second administration could mean for the automotive world. Luckily (I guess) for us, we’ve got a pretty good idea of what’s in store based on things outlined in Project 2025 – a blueprint for a Republican presidential administration published by deeply conservative think tank The Heritage Foundation. Sure, Trump has tried his best to distance himself from Project 2025, but many of its creators have ended up in positions of power in his new administration.
Now, folks within the automotive industry are looking toward the 887-page document to see what Trump may do after he takes office on January 20. It lays out plays for electric vehicles, fuel economy standards, emissions requirements and California’s ability to have its own pollution rules, according to Automotive News. It’s some pretty terrifying stuff.
People who were once a part of the automotive world, like Diana Furchtgott-Roth, an economist and former Department of Transportation deputy assistant secretary for research and technology as well as Thomas F. Gilman, the former CEO of Chrysler Financial authored parts of Project 2025, AutoNews reports.
Here’s what they and other authors of Project 2025 have planned for emissions regulations and the EPA as a whole. From Automotive News:
Project 2025 takes issue with several ways emissions regulations have been implemented in the U.S. Much of the criticism is related to two sets of standards the nation has governing the auto industry — fuel economy standards from the DOT and emissions regulations from the EPA.
First, it contends that the Energy Policy and Conservation Act of 1975 grants DOT the ability to create the “maximum feasible” mileage requirements for vehicles and that the standards “must be achievable” using internal combustion engine technology running on “gasoline, diesel fuel, or similar combustible fuels,” not EVs. These requirements are the corporate average fuel economy standards.
The issue is complex. On the one hand, the Energy Policy and Conservation Act of 1975 does define fuel as “gasoline and diesel oil,” but it says that “The Secretary may, by rule, include any other liquid fuel or any gaseous fuel within the meaning of the term ‘fuel’ if he determines that such inclusion is consistent with the need of the Nation to conserve energy.”
DOT has determined a way to evaluate the “fuel economy” of battery-electric vehicles, the petroleum-equivalent fuel economy calculation. And EPA has developed a miles-per-gallon equivalent measure for alternative powertrain vehicles.
The document says that in addition to ensuring the rules are achievable for ICE vehicles, DOT must lower fuel economy standards to levels specified by Congress for 2020 model year vehicles, a fleetwide average of 35 mpg, according to laboratory test measures. Real-world miles-per-gallon metrics are typically 20 to 30 percent less than the government measure, according to DOT. This would undo Biden-era levels “that cannot realistically be met by most categories of ICE vehicles” and that are aligned with an “anti-fossil fuel climate agenda never approved by Congress” that’s designed to “force the auto industry to transition away from traditional technologies” and “compel Americans to accept costly EVs” despite their preference to the contrary.
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Finally, the blueprint wants the next Republican administration to “ensure that DOT again exercises priority in the setting of fuel economy standards” over the EPA, which sets emissions limits for new motor vehicles under the Clean Air Act. The document complains that “because carbon dioxide emissions levels correspond to mileage in automobiles powered by fossil fuels, these EPA rules are de facto fuel economy requirements,” when neither the EPA nor other federal agencies have “clear authority to set fuel economy requirements in place of NHTSA.”
It’s not just fuel economy and environmental damage Project 2025 is focused on, though. It’s also taking a hard look at autonomous vehicles, as Automotive News explains:
Project 2025 appears to be of two minds about the development of autonomous vehicles and advanced driver-assist systems. On the one hand, liberals are “trying to force [Americans] into electric vehicles and eventually out of the driver’s seat altogether in favor of self-driving robots.”
On the other hand, the document assails the “more compulsory and antagonistic approach to mandating data collection and publication” for AVs. This is a reference to the standing general order for manufacturers that must report crashes and provide subsequent information to NHTSA when the event involves automated driving systems.
NHTSA, the authors say, must reverse this and return to a “successful focus on the voluntary sharing of data” and should “work to remove regulatory barriers” to the operation of AVs.
Right now it’s far too early in the ballgame to tell how this is all going to shake out, but it’s very clear that if the Trump Administration and the people behind Project 2025 get their way, the automotive landscape is going to be vastly different – and worse – because of it. Buckle up, folks, because the impact of what they plan to do could reach much further than when Trump’s term ends in January 2029.
