Less efficient cars don't actually save you money

Let me say up front that if you drive a car, you should drive an EV. Though they’re currently somewhat more expensive than gas (aka “ICE” - internal combustion engine) cars, the money you save on fuel and maintenance pays back that difference before you know it. There’s the added benefit that you’re contributing to cleaner air and less climate-warming emissions: yay!

That said, there are still a lot of ICE cars (sorry not sorry for the unfortunate overlapping meaning of “ICE”; I don’t make the acronyms) on the road. If you drive one, you know that gas is only getting more and more expensive. Along with pretty much everything else in the US. Now here comes President Trump, already the major cause in several ways of those rising prices (tariffs, wars, bad policies, you name it), and he’s here to “help” some more. Surprise, surprise: this latest move will do more to help out his billionaire MAGA donors than the regular consumers who he claims will be helped.

Canary Media has the story: Drivers will pay the price for Trump’s fuel economy rollbacks. The Trump administration is planning to reduce minimum fuel efficiency standards, from the average of 50.4 MPG (miles per gallon) level set by the Biden administration, all the way down to 34.9 MPG.

President Donald Trump claims that lowering the fuel standards will save consumers money. In actuality, it is yet one more way that his policies are making life more expensive for most Americans. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s own assessment finds that reducing the fuel efficiency standard will force drivers of new cars to pay an average of $1,624 more for gas over the lifetime of the vehicle. That outweighs the estimated savings on car prices.

I guess the idea is based on the general belief that all regulations are Just Bad, and that it costs car makers so much to make their vehicles more efficient, and that no buyers ever want that. Relax the regulations, let Ford crank out a bunch of gas-guzzlers, and you or I can drive off the lot with all that extra money in our pockets. Of course, as that quote above points out, that means paying for more gas more often over the life of that car. (Not pointed out explicitly are the extra ER visits for kids who can’t breathe or the insane insurance rates because of more frequent and more severe climate-change-driven storms.)

I’ve heard some commentary supposing that US auto manufacturers won’t move to change their fleet lineups too quickly. The idea is that their design, marketing, and production plans are long-term enough that they won’t want to have to make a U-turn (car pun!) once the Trump regime is over and all of these idiotic and self-defeating moves are reversed. I sure hope that’s right. Or maybe those US automakers will also see the Chinese EV rivals on the horizon and realize they should try to catch up sooner than later. Either way, as usual, Trump’s “help” is anything but.