Trump’s Pushback Against EVs Is Driving Up Car Prices Across the Board — Gas Models Included

The Trump administration’s stance against electric vehicles is contributing to rising prices for nearly every kind of car, writes Umair Irfan for Wired.

Part of the increase stems from the instability created by rapid shifts in federal rules and incentives. According to Irfan, the Alliance for Automotive Innovation — which represents major automakers including Ford, Toyota, and Volkswagen — warned the EPA in a September letter that the administration’s rollbacks and the scrapping of EV incentives make the Biden-era emissions requirements through 2027 “simply not achievable.” And although penalties for noncompliance have been removed, manufacturers are hesitant to invest in changes that could be undone again by a future administration.

At the same time, undoing emissions standards is likely to have broad, long-term consequences. Research from the think tank Energy Innovation suggests that eliminating tailpipe rules could saddle U.S. households with an additional $310 billion in costs by 2050, largely due to higher spending on gasoline. Irfan also notes that even the Trump administration’s own assessment of reversing EPA greenhouse-gas regulations concluded that the rollback would raise fuel prices because less efficient vehicles would burn more gas.