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IPFS News Link • Trump Administration

55D Compliance Chess?

• Eric Peters Autos

It is this:

What if Trump's plan is to generate such a backlash that when he and everything associated with him is flushed out of office come 2028, the agenda – the one planned for 2030 we used to hear a lot about – will become a fait accompli? It is why I am typing this at 2:30 something in the morning.

It keeps me up all night.

Think of how this plan might work as regards the car situation. Trump has "rolled back" certain federal requirements and the fines applied for not complying with them. Specifically, federal fuel economy (CAFE) requirements. He has also talked about dialing back federal "emissions" requirements, which nowadays have mostly to do with carbon dioxide "emissions" that do not have anything to do with air pollution. He has ended the federal tax subsidy for EVs and that has helped to crater the "market" for EVs.

But he has not eliminated any of the federal regulatory bodies – such as the EPA and DOT – that issue the regs. In other words, what he has done is something along the lines of chaining a dangerous dog – with a chain that's weak enough the dog could snap it at some future point.

He has not put the dog down.

The people running the car companies know this. They know, in other words, that the regulatory pressure that forced them to produce an array of compliance technologies and compliance vehicles hasn't been eliminated, but merely abated. Probably temporarily. It places them in an untenable position. Right now, they are stuck with piling up inventories of loss-leading EVs and plug-in hybrids that their dealer networks can't sell – at least not without losing money on each "sale," by fire-sale discounting the things. Several – such as Stellantis – have pulled the plug on some of these models. They now rush to get to market with vehicles the market might want, such as Chargers with engines and Ram trucks with V8 engines.