Trump Vows to End Electric Vehicle ‘Mandate’ on Day One

(Bloomberg) -- Former President Donald Trump used his nomination speech to take aim at President Joe Biden’s electric vehicle policies, vowing to action against them on his first day in office.

“I will end the electric vehicle mandate on day one,” Trump said in his address at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee. The move would result in “saving the US auto industry from complete obliteration, which is happening right now, and saving US customers thousands and thousands of dollars per car,” he said.

While the Biden administration doesn’t have a mandate on electric vehicles, critics of new air-pollution limits issued by the Environmental Protection Agency in March have said they would illegally force automakers to sell EVs.

Trump has repeatedly vowed to repeal what he calls Biden’s “EV mandate,” referring to a new EPA regulation limiting tailpipe pollution that is so strict it would compel automakers to sell far more electric and hybrid models over time. 

Although automakers have a choice in how they comply with the pollution limits, they’re expected to meet them by selling more lower-emission hybrids and zero-emission EVs. Under one scenario modeled by the EPA, about 56% of sales of new cars and light trucks in 2032 would be electric and an additional 16% would be hybrids.

Trump’s remarks on EVs came just moments before he criticized what he said was trillions of dollars of wasteful spending “having to do with the green new scam.” He said he would instead direct the money to projects like roads, bridges and dams, though it wasn’t immediately clear how he would make good on the pledge.

Trump has made no secret his disdain for electric vehicles, claiming they don’t work and will benefit China and Mexico while hurting American autoworkers. Biden, in contrast, has made the shift to battery-powered cars one of his top climate and industrial policies and has set a goal of having 50% of all new vehicle sales be electric by 2030.

(Updates with more details on EPA auto regulation starting in fourth graph.)

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