The Car Price Problem Gets Real as Trump Ditches Biden’s EV Mandates

When Government Gets Out of Your Garage

Here’s something that shouldn’t be revolutionary but somehow is: Americans want to buy the cars they actually want to buy. Not the ones bureaucrats think they should want. Not the ones that check boxes on some regulatory flowchart. The real ones. The affordable ones.

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin, and U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer spent Saturday walking the Detroit Auto Show, and their message landed with the clarity of a V8 engine firing up on a cold morning. They’re rolling back the Biden administration’s electric vehicle mandates, and they’re doing it because someone finally asked a question Washington forgot to consider: What if people can’t afford your grand vision?

Average new car prices hit $50,326 in December. Let that number sit for a moment. That’s not luxury territory anymore. That’s just the cost of a new vehicle in America today, according to Cox Automotive. For a country that campaigned on bringing prices down, that figure represents more than economic data. It represents kitchen table math that doesn’t add up for millions of families.

The EV Mandate Nobody Asked For

Duffy made it plain: “This is not a war on EVs at all.” And he’s right. It’s not about hating electric vehicles or pretending they don’t have a place in the market. Some people love them. Some people want them. That’s called consumer choice, and it’s supposed to be the foundation of a free market economy.

What the Trump administration is dismantling isn’t the EV itself. It’s the heavy hand of government forcing automakers to build products people aren’t buying in the quantities Washington demanded. Biden’s rules essentially told manufacturers to pivot their entire production strategy toward electric vehicles, regardless of what customers wanted or could afford. The $7,500 tax credit? Gone. California’s ability to set its own EV mandates and force them on other states? Rescinded. Penalties for not meeting arbitrary fuel efficiency standards? Cancelled.

Zeldin put it simply: the government “should not be forcing, requiring, mandating that the market go in a direction other than what the American consumer is demanding.” This isn’t complicated philosophy. It’s basic respect for the people who actually have to write the checks.

The Real Cost of Regulatory Overreach

You know what’s fascinating about the car market right now? Automakers are offering fewer entry-level vehicles. The affordable sedan is becoming an endangered species. Why? Because when you force manufacturers to invest billions in electric infrastructure and meet impossible regulatory standards, something has to give. And what gives is the basic, reliable, affordable car that working Americans depend on.

The administration’s approach recognizes something critics refuse to acknowledge: regulations have costs. Real costs. Costs that get passed directly to consumers. When you mandate that a certain percentage of vehicles must be electric, you’re not just suggesting a direction. You’re demanding massive capital investment, retooling factories, developing supply chains, and absorbing losses on vehicles people aren’t buying yet in sufficient numbers.

Traditional principles matter here. Limited government isn’t about chaos or abandoning oversight. It’s about recognizing that markets work better than mandates. Individual liberty means the freedom to choose a gas-powered truck if that’s what fits your life and your budget.

The Tariff Tension Nobody Wants to Talk About

Now, there’s an elephant in this showroom. Trump’s tariffs on imported vehicles and parts create their own price pressures. You can’t pretend they don’t exist. But here’s the distinction: tariffs aim to rebuild American manufacturing capacity and protect domestic jobs. They’re a strategic tool with a specific goal, not a social engineering project disguised as environmental policy.

Are tariffs perfect? No. Do they create short-term price pressures? Yes. But there’s a difference between temporary economic friction designed to strengthen American industry and permanent regulatory burdens that fundamentally reshape consumer choice. One is a negotiating position. The other is a mandate.

Despite everything, despite the policy changes and the tariff complications, new U.S. vehicle sales rose 2.4% recently. That suggests something important: when you give people options they actually want, they buy them.

What Americans Actually Demand

The Midwest tour wasn’t accidental. Duffy, Zeldin, and Greer visited a Ford truck factory and a Stellantis Jeep plant in Ohio before hitting Detroit. These aren’t symbolic stops. These are the places where America still makes things, where workers depend on a healthy auto industry that responds to real demand rather than regulatory fantasy.

Americans buy trucks and SUVs because they need them. They haul equipment. They transport families. They handle weather and terrain that a compact electric sedan simply can’t manage. That’s not ignorance or environmental hostility. That’s life.

The administration’s message is refreshingly simple: build what people want, price it where they can afford it, and let the market decide what succeeds. If EVs can compete on their merits without subsidies and mandates, great. If they can’t yet, that’s valuable information too.

This isn’t about stopping progress. It’s about letting progress happen organically, driven by innovation and consumer preference rather than government force. That’s how you get better products at better prices. That’s how you respect both the market and the people participating in it.

When Sean Duffy says these changes “will bring car prices down and allow car companies to offer products that Americans want to buy,” he’s not making a political statement. He’s making an economic one. And it’s about time someone in Washington remembered the difference.

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