The Government Rolled Back Fuel Economy Standards. Here's One Major Impact

The government says the regulations will save lives overall, but air quality related deaths will go up.

Car Exhaust

Nico DeMattia

By: Nico DeMattia

Sep 29, at 6:53pm ET

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The Trump administration seems hellbent on reversing all Biden-era emissions and fuel economy standards. First, it slashed the federal EV tax credits with Congress' help, and now it's rolling back Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards.

Rolling those rules back allows automakers to build less efficient vehicles and reduces the incentive to build electric cars, arguably putting the U.S. further behind in the global transition to electrified vehicles. On top of that, the looser regulations will create more pollution and damage public health. The regulator justified this in the standards noting that lighter, cheaper vehicles will encourage more consumers to buy safer vehicles, saving lives. But the increased emissions will contribute to more respiratory related deaths and illnesses.

(Update 9/30/26 at 3:08 P.M. E.T.: This story has been updated with further context from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, which clarifies that the government expects lives cost in excess pollution-related deaths to be offset by safer, cheaper vehicles that prevent road fatalities.)

The Biden-era standards required automakers to improve efficiency across their fleet of vehicles by 2% every year, until 2031. That would, at least in theory, help every automaker reach a fleet-average fuel economy of 50.4 mpg. With Trump's new standards, automakers only have to get 1% better every year, with a target fleet-average fuel economy of just 34.9 mpg by 2031. It's a painfully low target, considering some automakers are already almost there.

The agency says it picked this target partially because it aims to set a bar based on conventional fuels, as that is the statutory basis for CAFE.

The legislation, the agency wrote in final rules, "contains an explicit, unambiguous prohibition: the agency may not consider the fuel economy of dedicated [Alternative Fuel Vehicles] when determining maximum feasible average fuel economy levels. NHTSA’s inclusion of electric vehicles in baseline calculations for the prior standards constituted a clear legal error that resulted in standards that were premised on impermissible considerations and beyond maximum feasible. NHTSA acknowledges the agency’s prior position that exclusion of electric vehicles in the baseline would underestimate the standards that manufacturers could meet by making additional improvements to their gasoline- and diesel powered vehicles."

Earlier this year, this administration's EPA released a report that ranked the most efficient automakers in the country. Honda was number one, with a fleet-average fuel economy of 31 mpg. None of the top five automakers were lower than 29 mpg, one of which being BMW, which makes high-performance M cars. So achieving 34.9 mpg isn't a goal, it's an inevitability.

As part of the new CAFE standards, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration lays out all of the health risks, including how many work days will be lost to illness, how many respiratory emergency room visits, and how many deaths will come as a result of these changes. The agency analyzed the impacts of five different alternatives to the status quo, with the final standards listed as "Alternative 3." The full analysis can be seen here. (Again, the agency also predicts better outcomes in the form of cheaper cars and more safe vehicles on the road as well.)

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The administration is projecting 297 emergency room visits, 733 acute bronchitis cases, 140 cardiovascular hospital admissions, and 524 premature mortalities by 2050 as a result of the new standards.

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A key rationale for changing the rules, per the administration, is that it will make cars cheaper by allowing automakers not to invest in more efficient technologies. But the societal costs are substantial too, as the administration itself acknowledges. As we reported yesterday, the NHTSA says the relaxed standards will also result in Americans burning billions more gallons of gas and increase surface temperatures from all the extra CO2 pumped into the atmosphere.

Is $1,200 a car in potential savings worth that tradeoff? Regulators seem to think so.

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