Free Republic

President Donald Trump rescinded 78 of former President Joe Biden’s executive actions with the stroke of a pen on Monday night. “Several EOs imposed crushing emissions standards designed to end gas powered vehicles, set an EV mandate by 2030, canceled the Keystone Pipeline, stopped drilling, and prevented permitting,” the sheet notes.

He'll save the inedible bait fish, the weed that no one's ever heard of, elevate meritless executives, and kill the gas car. Those are the highest environmental aspirations of Gavin Newsom, the alleged visionary governor of California, whose distorted priorities have combined to create the conditions for LA Inferno 2025. As the smoke begins to clear, the cruel environy is dawning. Even now, the homeless LA gliteratti, who soon may be allowed to sift through the ashes of their homes in hopes of finding the gold coins that looters haven't dug up yet, wonder how they could have been so...

On January 16, 2025, Rivian Automotive, Inc. announced a significant agreement with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) for a loan facility worth up to $6.6 billion to develop an electric vehicle manufacturing plant in Georgia. This facility will create over 7,500 jobs and facilitate the production of the new R2 SUV and R3 crossover models, enhancing Rivian’s position in the electric vehicle industry and supporting U.S. leadership in this sector. The agreement marks a major step in Rivian’s expansion, with construction expected to begin in 2026 and vehicle production anticipated by 2028. More about Rivian Automotive Rivian Automotive, Inc....

California regulators withdrew a proposal to mandate the sale of zero-emissions trucks over the next 20 years on Tuesday evening. The California Air Resources Board (CARB) pulled back its request to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for a waiver that would have allowed the state to require massive increases in sales of electric or zero-emissions truck models over the coming decades. As of 2023, only 0.3% of all registered heavy-duty vehicles in the U.S. were zero-emissions models, according to the International Council on Clean Transportation. CARB’s Advanced Clean Fleets rule would have mandated California’s truck fleet to move to zero-emission...

As the smoke clears from devastating Los Angeles wildfires, efforts to clean up the affected areas are being complicated by burnt-out electric and hybrid vehicles and home-battery storage systems. Lithium batteries from Tesla Inc., along with those from other carmakers, have added to the mix of toxic materials requiring specialized removal in the wake of the fires, delaying the fire victims’ return to their properties. “A lot of the cars in the evacuation area were lithium batteries,” said Jacqui Irwin, a state assembly member representing the Pacific Palisades, one of the neighborhoods hardest hit by the fires. “We’ve heard from...

When Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm and her staff of clowns bungled a four-day ramble in 2023 to show off the wonder of electric vehicles, the lasting impression would be the report of her advance team blocking an open charger so she wouldn’t have to wait for one. A federal report, however, reveals details that cast the entire charade in an even worse light. The Granholm tour was to take her from Charlotte, N.C., to Memphis, Tenn., and was intended to justify the billions of taxpayers’ dollars the Biden administration was pouring into green energy initiatives. The message was lost when...

Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm dropped nearly $125,000 in taxpayer money on pricey hotels and other expenses during her electric vehicle-boosting summer 2023 road trip — flanked by a gas-guzzling car — while her staff improperly exceeded their daily, federally determined allowances, according to the department’s watchdog. Granholm’s team submitted 42 travel vouchers worth $124,824 for the taxpayer-funded tour — but 36 of the them had lodging costs valued over the government’s per diem rates to the tune of $9,487.50, the watchdog found. Some of the travelers also received higher reimbursement amounts than they were supposed to and several travel reports...

The Pentagon will blacklist China’s largest EV battery manufacturer and its largest tech firm beginning in June 2026, barring them from Defense Department contracts and sending a powerful signal to American firms about the potential risks of doing business with them. In a notice in the Federal Register on Monday, the Defense Department published a list of firms that it deems to be operating in the United States for, or on behalf of, the Chinese military or that contribute to China’s military buildup.... The “1260H list,” mandated annually by Congress since 2021, now includes CATL, the world’s largest electric-vehicle battery-maker,...

Mazda is defying industry trends with surging sales of its gas-powered SUVs. Can it keep the momentum going without a fully electric vehicle in its lineup? While many automakers are racing toward electrification, Mazda is proving that there’s still room for gas-powered success. The Japanese automaker is set to break its U.S. sales record from 1986, with over 420,000 vehicles expected to be sold in 2024—a 16% increase from the previous year. Mazda’s president of North American operations, Tom Donnelly, credited the popularity of its compact crossovers and mid-size SUVs for this growth, with a target of 450,000 vehicles for...

The wife of the Army soldier who blew up a Tesla Cybertruck outside the Trump International Hotel in Las Vegas Wednesday broke up with him six days before he killed himself inside the vehicle, according to law enforcement sources. Matthew Livelsberger, 37, left his Colorado Springs home the day after Christmas following an argument with his wife over apparent infidelity, two sources familiar with the investigation told The Post. His wife — who had a baby daughter with Livelsberger — reportedly told him that she knew he had been cheating, the sources said. After leaving Colorado, Livelsberger rented a Cybertruck...

Per Breaking 911: THIS WASN'T INTENTIONAL? A Cybertruck randomly explodes in front of the Trump Hotel in Las Vegas? The explosion appears to show fireworks exploding. Was this some sort of message to @elonmusk and @realDonaldTrump?

The man who drove a truck into a crowd of New Year's revelers in New Orleans' French Quarter, killing 15, has been identified as 42-year-old Shamsud Din Jabbar, a US citizen. The Ford electric vehicle was owned by another 42-year-old man from Houston, Texas. The truck had reportedly been rented out on Turo, and police are in contact with the owner who listed it for rent. The gunman was killed by police after he slammed a truck into pedestrians celebrating the New Year, exited the vehicle, and started firing. The vehicle was reportedly carrying an ISIS flag and a chest...

The Trump International Hotel in Las Vegas has reportedly been evacuated after a Cybertruck exploded outside the front doors. A Cybertruck - made by Trump croonie Elon Musk's company Tesla - was seen in a fiery blaze outside the front revolving doors of the hotel, social media video showed. Large orange flames were seen crawling out the windows of the Cybertruck before several explosive sounds can be heard. The top of the car appears to blow afterward Fire alarms were heard going off in the building. It is unclear if hotel guests have been evacuated. It is unclear if anyone...

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...

The best time to buy an electric vehicle may be right now. That’s because a $7,500 federal tax credit could soon disappear. President-elect Donald Trump has said he will move to eliminate the tax credit, possibly as soon as he takes office. It is even conceivable that the tax credit’s elimination could be made retroactive to the beginning of January, which would give EV buyers only a week left to be certain of locking in the credit. “I would be very inclined to say yes, it’s going away,” said Ivan Drury, director of insights at car buying site Edmunds. While...

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...

"Enjoying your rental? Take it home with Hertz Car Sales."Hertz bought a bunch of Tesla Model 3s for its rental fleet and quickly realized that Tesla depreciation would be extra bad at scale. In an aggressive effort to sell off its remaining Tesla inventory, the rental company is sending extra cheap buyout options to rental customers. If you like your rental, Hertz will sell it to you for an extra cheap good deal. One Hertz customer took to Reddit to show off a screenshot of the deal he got directly from Hertz, a 2023 Tesla Model 3 with 30,000 miles...

Visegrád 24 Anti-oil climate activists in Germany fight the "climate crisis" by throwing orange paint over a Tesla Cybertruck, an electric vehicle that does not run on oil.

The U.S. Postal Service’s multibillion-dollar program to purchase electric mail delivery trucks is severely delayed, another bungled EV program to further tarnish Joe Biden’s presidency. The Washington Post reports that the U.S. Postal Service’s ambitious plan to modernize its aging delivery fleet with electric vehicles is significantly behind schedule. The $10 billion project, which received $3 billion in funding from the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, is a crucial part of outgoing President Joe Biden’s climate change agenda.

The State of California, which is suffering from massive budget deficits, will spend $1.4 billion to expand a network of electric vehicle (EV) charging stations to assist drivers of the cars that Gov. Gavin Newsom wants to require by 2035. As Breitbart News noted earlier this week, Newsom’s EV mandate is in trouble, with sales falling far below targets. In addition, as the Los Angeles Times reported, Newsom is raising eyebrows by continuing to propose new spending — even though the state is suffering under massive budget deficits, despite lavish coronavirus relief from the federal government under President Joe Biden’s...