- GM says strict fuel rules nearly forced it to cut gasoline models.
- CEO claims compliance pressure could have closed GM plants.
- Trump rollback eases targets automakers struggled to meet fully.
General Motors CEO Mary Barra recently acknowledged that federal fuel efficiency standards were set so aggressively under the Biden administration that her company would have been forced to scale back production of internal combustion engine vehicles just to stay compliant.
More: GM’s CEO Defended Tesla And Musk To Biden, But The Snub Happened Anyway
Barra shared this during a conversation at a high-profile industry conference hosted by The New York Times, where she discussed the internal pressures major automakers face under the current regulatory environment.
Timing matters, of course, as her comments came shortly after President Donald Trump confirmed that fuel efficiency standards are being rolled back, reducing the pressure on automakers to build EVs and providing them with more flexibility to manufacture and sell more combustion-powered models.
“Had to Start Shutting Down Plants”
Under the Biden-era rules, automakers would have been required to reach a fleet-wide fuel economy average of 50 miles per gallon by 2031. According to Bloomberg, achieving that would have meant electric vehicles making up more than half of all sales by that point.
Read: GM CEO Says EV Shift To Happen “Over Decades”
If GM couldn’t meet those benchmarks, and if the administration didn’t revise the rules to reflect market realities, Barra claims that the company would have had little choice but to curtail sales of its gasoline-powered lineup.
She added that internal forecasts indicated the company would have “had to start shutting down plants” if its EV sales didn’t grow quickly enough.
Barra also touched on several other topics with Andrew Ross Sorkin, the interviewer and the founder and editor at large of DealBook. At one point, he asked her about GM flip-flopping in supporting policies during the first Trump administration, again when Joe Biden was elected, and once more after Trump returned to the White House in January.
Bending The Knee Or Business As Usual?
Barra responded by framing GM’s approach as pragmatic, not political. The company, she said, wants to build vehicles people want to buy, and it simply has to work within the regulatory frameworks set by whoever is in office.
Also: Ford’s CEO Applauds Trump’s CAFE Rollback, Says They Were Forced Into EVs
Now, thanks to the rollback of CAFE standards, it will have the freedom to better manufacturer vehicles based on what their customers want, rather than simply what they must build to meet regulatory requirements.
How this will impact the American car industry remains to be seen, but if those rules remain in place in the future, we don’t expect to see EVs accounting for a significant share of the market any time soon.
