While consumer interest in electric vehicles failed to keep pace with the Biden-Harris administration’s federal EV mandates, which led to huge losses, the Big Three U.S. automakers may pressure President-elect Donald Trump to keep the requirements in a quest for "stability and predictability." 

Ford, General Motors and Stellantis, the New York Times reports, citing unnamed “lobbyists and officials from several car companies,” want Trump to keep the EPA’s tailpipe emission standards, which restrict the amount of emissions their products can produce across fleets.

In a letter to Trump, the Times reported, John Bozzella, president of the Alliance for Automotive Innovation, which represents the manufactures of almost all new vehicles sold in the U.S., automakers’ success depends on “stability and predictability in auto-related emissions standards.”

In order to comply with the mandates, more than half of their vehicles sold, according to the EPA, will need to be electric by 2032. By some estimates, to comply with the federal mandate, automakers will need to make nearly 70% of their lines electric by 2032. 

EV's failing to meet sales targets

In the first half of this year, nearly 7% of new vehicle purchases were electric, or 454,670 vehicles, according to Edmunds sales data. Assuming that number doubles by the end of this year, it will not match or exceed the 1,077,138 EVs sold in 2023. To reach half of all car sales by 2032, EVs sales will need to grow by approximately 5.4% annually. With sales slowing, that’s not likely to happen. 

However, consumers haven’t gotten on board with that plan. Ford, which separates its EV business from other parts of the company, has lost $3.7 billion this year. Last year, the company lost $4.7 billion, and in 2022, it lost $2.2 billion. 

It’s unclear how much Stellantis and General Motors have lost on their EVs lines, but GM missed its EV production goals by half last year, Mackinac Center Research Analyst, Joshua Antonini reported on the group’s blog this week. According to the Morningstar report, the company had planned to produce 250,000 to 300,000 EVs this year, but it lowered that target to between 200,000 and 250,000. The company also delayed the launch of its first EV wearing its Buick badge. General Motors has also withdrawn a target of 1 million EVs produced in North America and China by the end of 2025.

Stellantis dealers recently told the Detroit News that monthly sales are down by half compared to previous years, but CEO Carlos Tavares said at the Paris Motor Show last month, he will stay the EV course so as to be “on the right side of history.” Over 5,000 dealers across all automakers launched a campaign last year asking the Biden-Harris administration to reconsider the EV mandates, claiming their suppliers were filling up their lots with EVs that their customers weren’t interested in. 

Tavares acknowledged that car buyers “may not be so excited about it.” Citing a Gallup poll from March showing nearly half of all survey respondents wouldn’t consider buying an EV: up from 7% the previous year. Antonini called Tavares acknowledgement “an understatement.” Likewise, a McKinsey poll showed that 46% of Americans who owned an EV were likely to switch back to gas with their next car purchase. 

Chasing subsidies

“What is actually happening seems plain. We don’t want to spend our money on electric vehicles, so the Biden-Harris and Whitmer administrations take our money and give it to motor companies to build them anyway. This is done in the name of saving the planet, when the actual climate impacts of these policies are too small to measure,” Antonini wrote. 

Jason Hayes, director of environmental policy at the Mackinac Center, argued on his “Forests, Fuels and Freedom” Substack Thursday that the automakers are chasing subsidies and “choosing this confused view of morality over the clear market signals being sent by their customers.” 

“Business can’t pretend that imposing woke, green ideology on unwilling customers will be a successful, long-term business strategy,” Hayes wrote. 

The Times article, citing data from the Center for Automotive Research, points to the automakers’ $146 million in investments in the design, engineering and manufacturing of their EV lines, and the years-long development process before new vehicles hit the showrooms, as a motivation for automakers wanting to maintain the regulatory environment that their EV visions – and investments – are based on. 

How much pull they’ll have with the next president isn’t certain. With Trump’s poor relationship with the automakers stemming from political disputes over emissions standards going back to his first term in office, the Times reports, they’re not likely to easily get Trump to reconsider the EV mandate rollback. 

Tesla CEO Elon Musk, who has a close relationship with Trump and supported his campaign, will head Trump’s proposed Department of Government Efficiency, which aims to shrink the size of government. Musk, despite his company benefiting from the EV tax credits that were rolled out as part of the Inflation Reduction Act, said in a post on X, “In my view, we should end all government subsidies, including those for EVs, oil and gas.” 

While some things Trump has promised to do might not come to fruition, the EPA’s tailpipe standards appear to be among the most vulnerable targets of the coming administration.