Trump wants to kill California emissions standards. Here’s what it means for EVS

This week the White House and President Donald Trump attempted to kill, once and for all, the California plan to accelerate the sale of cars with zero emissions and trucks in the state. In a ceremony in Washington, DC, Thursday participated in the managers of the Autotrasporti, Trump signed three resolutions approved by the congress aimed at revoking the power of almost 60 years of California to establish their rules of motor vehicles emissions.

In this way, the Federal Government is targeting one of the most ambitious electrification patterns of vehicles-and climatic policies-In the world: the goal of California to prohibit the sale of new gas vehicles in the state of 2035. Today, one on four vehicles sold in California are electrical or plug-in hybrid vehicles.

The move will not affect the type of cars available in the showrooms and many today, or even next year, the experts say. But the attempt to revoke California powers, together with a series of other policies aimed at electric vehicles, including the offer of the environmental protection Agency a Rolli Back Vehicle Commercial Standards; Congress’ push to nix EV tax credits; And the pause of the Transport Department on Funding for National Debit Infrastructures EV: it could affect the interest of car buyers to become electric. In other words: the electric vibrations are bad.

“[Auto] The production decisions are cooked and take years to change, “says Dear Horowitz, executive director of the Mmett Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at the Ucla School of Law.” But if there is a feeling among consumers in a loss [electric vehicle] Momentum, which can be heard on the market. “

“This is a great and great opposite wind,” says Simon Mui, who manages the defense of clean vehicles policies at the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC).

California immediately replied on Thursday with a cause. Governor Gavin also Newsom State agencies educated To find new ways to promote zero emission vehicles in the state.

The resolutions are based on a new legal theory proposed by Republican legislators who can use the congress power usually applied to the rules of federal agencies to eliminate the “renunciation” authority of California, which was established in 1967 as part of the Landmark Clean Air Act. These exemptions give the State a unique power to fix its emission emission standards.

“It is a completely unprecedented approach,” says California Rob Bonta’s prosecutor general in an interview. “[The Trump administration] He tries these marginal theories of mainstream, or only these absolutely inappropriate theories, to try to do things they can’t actually do. “

Ten states, including Colorado, Massachusetts, New York and Washington State, joined the cause.

The changing form of the market of US electric vehicles seems to have already had some effects on the attitudes of buyers against battery -powered cars. The sales data show that while Americans still buy electric, the The growth rate has slowed down. Those feelings, in addition to changing regulations and tariff policies, led to levels of “chaos” “unprecedented” for car manufacturers, according to a report published last week by the analysts of the Bank of America. “The next four years+ will be the most uncertain and volatile time in the strategy of the product ever,” they wrote. Analysts have noticed that the years of the model from 2026 to 2029 will see the release of cars only 159 new US models, with a lower annual average than the previous 20 years.