Five ways Trump’s new policies will impact electric vehicles in the US
- President Trump has indicated that he plans to reverse Biden’s EV policy
- Trump declared a ‘national energy emergency’
- Spending on electric vehicle charging infrastructure is paused
While the inauguration of the 47th US president was arguably overshadowed by the number of tech bros and questionable world leaders invited, Donald Trump wasted no time in getting down to business. As soon as he entered the White House, he signed a series of executive orders.
In fact, President Trump told a huge crowd packed into an arena in Washington DC that he would rescind “80 destructive and radical executive actions taken by the previous administration.”
“The United States will not sabotage our own industries while China pollutes with impunity,” he said to loud applause.
Part of this would involve undoing the work the previous Biden administration had done in protecting the environment, promoting the use of electric vehicles and preventing further oil drilling.
Any way you look at it, the new president appears to be cracking down on electric vehicles and the infrastructure surrounding them. Here are the five ways these early executive orders could impact the future of electric vehicles in the US.
EVs are likely to become even more expensive
Although he incorrectly labeled a number of Biden’s EV-friendly policies as a ‘mandate’ (such an EV mandate does not exist in the US as in Europe), President Trump wants to eliminate “unfair subsidies and other ill-conceived, government-imposed market distortions that favor electric cars over other technologies,” according to Whitehouse.gov.
Read between the lines and it seems very likely that federal tax credits for purchasing new electric vehicles will be reduced or completely eliminated.
Trump’s executive orders will also reduce tailpipe emissions and promote new oil drilling projects, all of which indicate that gasoline cars will remain the most affordable vehicles to buy and operate for the foreseeable future.
It will become more difficult to charge your EV publicly
Inertia in an industry as massive as automotive is difficult to slow, and years of incentives for new electric vehicle customers in North America will see more electric vehicles hit the streets in the coming months and years.
In 2024, US customers purchased 1.3 million electric vehicles – a 7.3% increase over the previous year, according to Cox Automobile.
This is all well and good as long as charging infrastructure continues to grow to support the increase in customers wanting to charge, but Trump’s executive order appears to be doing the exact opposite.
All funds for electric vehicle charging stations made available through the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Formula Program and the Charging and Fueling Infrastructure Discretionary Grant Program will be suspended while the Trump Administration continues their “processes, policies and programs for providing grants, loans and evaluates contracts’. or any other financial payout.”
A pause in funding will lead to a pause in the rollout of new public EV charging stations and the possible demolition of large-scale public projects, meaning charging infrastructure will be left to individuals in the form of installing home charging points.
Consumer choice will be limited
The Biden administration has already denied the American public the freedom to buy cheaper electric vehicles made in China, initially slapping massive trade tariffs on them and then essentially banning them altogether under the pretext of national security.
It is still uncertain whether President Trump will enforce this policy, but he has already threatened a 25% trade tariff on Mexico and Canada, close neighbors of the US and two key regions for the production and export of electric vehicles.
General Motors, Ford, the Volkswagen Group, BMW and Mercedes-Benz all produce cars in Mexico. At the same time, numerous automakers and battery manufacturers have earmarked huge sums for new car and battery factories in Canada.
Many of these promises have recently been retracted, due to the slow uptake of electric vehicles in Canada and North America. However, Trump’s proposed 25% tariff has the potential to devastate Canada’s fast-growing auto industry.
According to Maclean’s CanadaNearly 90 percent of vehicles produced there are exported to the U.S., and more than 60 percent of Canadian-made auto parts are shipped to U.S. assembly plants.
It won’t take much before some of the world’s largest automakers stop supplying electric vehicles to the North American market. This means that consumer choice will be limited to the select few models that remain profitable for their manufacturers.
EVs will struggle to charge with clean energy
The holy grail of owning an electric car is the ability to charge a vehicle’s battery cheaply and from renewable sources such as wind, solar and hydropower, as this does not require the burning of fossil fuels to produce electricity. produce and therefore drastically reduces the ecological footprint.
President Trump’s national energy emergency declaration has his administration temporarily withdrawing areas of the Outer Continental Shelf from offshore wind leasing, citing the potential threat to marine life.
“We’re not going to do the wind thing,” Trump said at the meeting The edgeinstead, he shifted his focus to more gas and oil drilling.
The Unleashing American Energy Act will also overhaul any policy that could hinder drilling operations, including hydropower and biofuels.
Innovation will slow and China will continue to race ahead
While many of President Trump’s executive orders will have a direct impact on potential EV customers in North America, they will also have a ripple effect on the rest of the world.
The very act of withdrawing from the Paris Climate Agreement, along with Iran, Libya and Yemen, means that the US is no longer committed to slowing the devastating effects of climate change and will effectively allow the nation to pollute with homosexual abandon .
But more than that, vilifying their electric car makes it a less attractive option for US-based automakers, meaning their willingness to innovate in this area is hampered by the desire to turn a quick profit – largely from the same gasoline and sell diesel vehicles like them. done for decades.
Many older carmakers are already far behind Chinese rivals when it comes to EV technology. Yet this divide will only widen as one of the world’s superpowers turns its back on electrification.