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WASHINGTON, May 19 (Reuters) - The U.S. Transportation Department is expected to declare that fuel economy rules issued under then President Joe Biden exceeded the government's legal authority by including electric vehicles in setting the rules, automakers said on Monday. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said the department's National Highway Traffic Safety Administration on Friday submitted its interpretive rule, "Resetting the Corporate Average Fuel Economy Program" to the White House for review. He said in a statement the prior administration had "illegally used CAFE standards as a backdoor electric vehicle mandate – driving the price of cars up."

In today’s environment, buying a new car has become a stretch for many households - fueling demand in the used-car market. But not all used vehicles are created equal, and reliability plays a major role in long-term ownership costs.For buyers looking to avoid expensive repairs down the road, brand reputation is more important than ever.In this graphic, Visual Capitalist's Marcus Lu ranked the best used-car brands of 2025, using data from Consumer Reports.Data & MethodologyTo come up with these reliability scores, Consumer Reports asked its members to report how many problems they’ve had with their vehicles over the past 12...

We have been strong supporters of this Congressional Review Act effort because the automobile market is clearly interstate commerce. And Biden let Calfiornia take the lead to eventually ban internal combustion vehicles nationally.Banning gas cars is wildly unpopular. This may explain why every House Republican and 35 House Democrats – the biggest bipartisan vote on a green issue in recent memory – voted to let Americans drive the car of their choice.These are the 35 Democrats who voted yes, including two from California and six from New York:Next up is the Senate. Maybe.The Senate Parliamentarian is reportedly taking the puzzling...

It looks as though trade progress is being made with Japan, as concessions about automobiles were reported on this weekend, signaling that Trump administration could be heading towards a revised agreement with the key ally nation. Japan may loosen auto safety rules for U.S. imports to address President Trump’s concerns over the low number of American cars sold there, Nikkei reports. With differing safety standards between the two countries, Tokyo is eyeing crash test regulations as a possible trade concession, according to Nikkei. During a White House meeting, Trump criticized Japan’s trade surplus and poor U.S. auto sales. Cabinet-level talks...

President Trump on Monday suggested he might temporarily exempt the auto industry from tariffs he previously imposed on the sector to give carmakers time to overhaul their complex supply chains. Mr. Trump told reporters gathered in the Oval Office that automakers "need a little bit of time" to relocate production from Canada, Mexico and elsewhere to the U.S. Car manufacturers' supply chains are tightly interwoven with other nations, making it almost impossible to make vehicles entirely in the United States. Because U.S. automakers source many of their car parts from key trade partners, including Canada, Mexico and China, a fully...

The supply of many foreign-made goods into the US is likely to grind to a halt as a result of President Trump’s tariffs, sources told The Post Monday. A baseline tariff of 10% was applied to many countries Saturday, with heftier percentages applied to the “worst offenders,” which levy high tariffs on US goods they import, in two days. Companies producing everything from toys to luxury wristwatches said they are holding off shipping goods — risking America going from the land of plenty to the land of plenty unavailable. The first luxury items to leave circulation: Jaguar, Range Rover and...

President Donald Trump announced Friday that he has spoken with House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) and Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) about making interest payments on loans for American-made cars tax deductible. While speaking with reporters in the Oval Office, Trump revealed that he has spoken with the leaders of both chambers of Congress about his vision for tax deductions on loans for U.S.-made cars. “If you buy a car in the United States that’s made in the United States, if it’s manufactured here… if you borrow money you have interest payments, we’re going to let you deduct the...

Major automakers and tech groups on Tuesday called on the Trump administration to take steps to speed deployment of self-driving cars, citing a number of regulatory hurdles. The Alliance For Automotive Innovation, a group representing nearly all major automakers, Consumer Technology Association, Autonomous Vehicle Industry Association and other groups in a letter called on Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy to quickly implement a national performance-based framework and to assert the federal government's role as sole regulator of self-driving vehicle hardware and software. "If the federal government fails to act to advance sensible AV policies we will cede our leadership in this...

Quote of the Week: "If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses." - Henry FordTalk about chaotic markets. Donald Trump’s on-again off-again tariffs on imports from Canada and Mexico caused markets to see-saw last week.Regardless of what happens next, the uncertainty could now weigh on markets until permanent trade deals are negotiated.The auto industry is right in the crosshairs of these tariffs and is understandably under pressure. The outlook for automakers was already looking shaky with electric vehicle sales losing momentum and consumer spending beginning to slow.On the other hand, pessimism creates opportunities. So...

The fundamental problem is this: electronic technology advances far too rapidly to be something that gets permanently integrated into a car that you may want to own for more than, say, five years or so. There’s nothing that ages an otherwise perfectly-fine car more dramatically than integrated technology that was cutting-edge when the car was new.

Illinois had some rare, good news yesterday.Stellantis, the Big 3 auto maker, announced it will be investing $1.2 billion in its Belvidere assembly plant and bringing back about 1,500 jobs there.You’ll never know who really got it done if you listen to Illinois’ leadership.It was a “dramatic turnabout,” as the Detroit Free Press put it.As you may remember, Gov. JB Pritzker announced to much fanfare in October 2023 that the Stellantis facility in Belvidere, idled with layoffs just before the previous Christmas, would be reopened. But no deal was ever signed and, last year, Stellantis indefinitely postponed any Belividere expansion,...

Donald Trump was sworn in as the 47th president earlier today, but the Biden administration rammed through a number of last minute decisions before that took place. One of them was the finalization of a loan to Rivian worth up to $6.6 billion. The Department of Energy said the money will be used to finance the development and construction of a new manufacturing plant near Social Circle, Georgia. The facility will span approximately nine million square feet and have the capability to build up to 400,000 crossovers and SUVs annually. The plant will build models based on Rivian’s new midsize...

The government of Brazil stopped issuing work visas for Chinese electric carmaker BYD after local authorities rescued 163 Chinese nationals working in conditions “analogous to slavery” at a BYD factory under construction in the city of Camaçari, Bahia, Reuters reported Friday. BYD, a company with deep ties to the Chinese Communist Party, is building the plant at a location once occupied by American carmaker Ford, which sold the location to the local Bahia government in 2023 after Ford ceased all operations in Brazil in 2021. Brazil’s Public Prosecutor’s Office announced on December 23 that construction work on BYD’s factory in...

Despite nearly 1,000 cars being set ablaze, hundreds of thousands of people in France welcomed the New Year with largely peaceful celebrations, according to Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau. Retailleau announced late on Wednesday that 984 cars went up in flames across the country. Some 420 people were arrested, 310 of whom were taken into police custody. The minister called the figures unacceptable. "This violence is the product of a brutalization embodied by cowards and thugs who attack the property of often humble French people who do not have the means to protect their vehicles in private car parks." But the...

Residents of Victoria’s most populous region have to pay upwards of $400 just to work on their own vehicles, after a local government area imposed strict rules around private land use earlier this year. The City of Casey in Melbourne’s south-east, which includes suburbs like Cranbourne and Berwick, requires residents to apply for a private land use permit if they’re planning to store more than two unregistered vehicles for up to 90 days, store long heavy vehicles, and even dismantle, repair or service vehicles. Residents of the local government area must provide a site plan that illustrates where the activity...

Last year, global vehicle production reached 93.5 million units, representing a 2% increase compared to pre-pandemic levels in 2019 and a significant 17% rise from 2022.This graphic, via Visual Capitalist's Kayla Zhu, visualizes the share of motor vehicles produced by the top 30 countries in 2023.The figures come from the International Organization of Motor Vehicle Manufacturers, and includes both passenger and commercial vehicles.Which Country Produced the Most Cars in 2023?Below, we show the total number of motor vehicles produced by each of the top 30 countries, as well as their share of global production.RankCountry/RegionRegionTotal Car ProductionShare of Total Production1🇨🇳 ChinaAsia30,160,96632.2%2🇺🇸...

The Environmental Protection Agency on Wednesday granted two requests from California to enforce strict standards for vehicle emissions, including a rule aimed at banning sales of new gasoline-powered cars in the state by 2035. The incoming Trump administration is likely to try to reverse the action. The California rule is stricter than a federal rule adopted this year that tightens emissions standards but does not require sales of electric vehicles. EPA said its review found that opponents of the two waivers did not meet their legal burden to show how either the EV rule or a separate measure on heavy-duty...

A few years ago, automakers were celebrating record profits as the pandemic created shortages of new cars, allowing them to raise prices. Now the hangover is setting in. Nissan, the Japanese automaker, is laying off 9,000 employees. Volkswagen is considering closing factories in Germany for the first time. The chief executive of the U.S. and European automaker Stellantis, which owns Jeep, Peugeot, Fiat and other brands, quit after sales tumbled. Even luxury brands like BMW and Mercedes-Benz are struggling. Each carmaker has its own problems, but there are some common threads. They include a tricky and expensive technological transition, political...

Elon Musk added nearly $7 billion to his net worth Wednesday as Tesla’s shares rallied to a new intraday high amid a broader surge for tech stocks, as analysts have held optimism for the automaker in the weeks since the election.

Ian takes a drive in a fully restored Dion Bhuton with 8 HP