Ford spent four years building cars that nobody wanted to buy.
This was due to Joe Biden’s attempt to force Americans into expensive electric vehicles (EVs).
Donald Trump just killed Joe Biden’s illegal move to force Americans to buy expensive electric vehicles .
The Billion-Dollar Scam Detroit Was Forced to Run
Biden's Corporate Average Fuel Economy rules – the ones Pete Buttigieg championed as a triumph of environmental vision – required automakers to hit 50.4 miles per gallon across their entire fleet by 2031.
That number was never about fuel economy.
It was an EV mandate wearing a mileage label.
To hit 50.4 mpg on gas-powered trucks and SUVs – the vehicles Americans actually buy – was physically impossible.
The only way to reach that standard was to flood the market with electric vehicles and count their "infinite" mpg equivalent against the fleet average.
Ford, GM, and Stellantis understood the game.
They poured billions into EV production lines, building cars that sat on dealer lots while consumers kept buying the gas-powered trucks and SUVs they actually wanted.
The Epoch Times reported the three Detroit automakers racked up write-downs of roughly $50 billion trying to comply with Biden's backdoor mandate.
Fifty billion dollars wasted on a government-engineered market that American consumers never asked for.
Sean Duffy Proved Biden's Team Broke the Law
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy didn't just call Biden's CAFE rules bad policy.
He called them illegal – and he was right.
Federal law requires NHTSA to set fuel economy standards based on what's "maximum feasible" for gas-powered vehicles – weighing technology, cost, and energy savings.
It explicitly prohibits counting electric vehicles in those calculations.
Biden's team did it anyway.
They assumed massive EV adoption, plugged those projections into the formula, and inflated the fleet efficiency targets to levels only achievable by producing more EVs.
The Alliance for Automotive Innovation – representing GM, Ford, Stellantis, and virtually every major manufacturer – backed Duffy's legal argument, saying the previous standards were "extremely challenging for automakers to achieve given the current marketplace for EVs."
That's the polite version.
https://twitter.com/trumptruthsbot/status/2103926521341825397?s=20
The honest version: Biden's EPA told Detroit to build a product the market didn't want, and fined them when customers wouldn't buy it.
Trump killed that on Saturday.
The Transportation Department finalized the new standards Monday – resetting the 2031 target to 34.5 mpg and freeing manufacturers to build the trucks, SUVs, and affordable gas-powered sedans that American families actually choose.
Why $100 Billion Just Started Flowing Back to the Midwest
Donald Trump didn't just reverse a regulation.
He changed the entire economic calculation for building cars in America.
When Biden's mandate was in force, automakers had to sink capital into money-losing EV lines just to stay legally compliant.
Every dollar spent on a Chevy Equinox EV that retailed at a loss was a dollar not spent expanding a profitable F-150 plant in Michigan.
Now that calculation is reversed.
Stellantis immediately announced a $13 billion investment in Midwest factories – Indiana, Ohio, Michigan – covering five new vehicles and more than 5,000 jobs.
GM committed $4 billion to expand U.S. production.
Ford said it's bringing Lincoln production back from China.
Trump said total automotive investment under his administration has now crossed $100 billion.
The plants Biden claimed to be saving by forcing EV mandates are coming back because Trump got the government out of the way.
https://twitter.com/FoxBusiness/status/2103990602014564582?s=20
Ford CEO Jim Farley praised Trump's leadership in "aligning fuel economy standards with market realities."
Market realities.
That's what Democrats spent four years trying to override – and it cost American families $930 on every new vehicle they bought while the charade lasted.
That's not my opinion.
That's NHTSA's own math.
This Is What Winning for Working America Looks Like
Here's what Biden's team never understood – or understood and didn't care about.
The families who buy pickup trucks and SUVs aren't buying them to make a political statement.
They're buying them because they haul equipment, carry families, tow boats, and navigate winter roads.
Buttigieg sat in his Department of Transportation office dreaming up a future where every American drove an EV, and he used the regulatory code to try to force that future into existence.
The chargers were never built.
The EVs piled up on dealer lots.
And working families paid more for their trucks while Detroit bled $50 billion trying to comply with a mandate that violated the law it claimed to be enforcing.
Trump saw it clearly during the 2024 campaign and promised to end it.
https://twitter.com/MichaelARothman/status/2103962254807093505?s=20
On Saturday, he delivered.
The manufacturers who spent four years bleeding red ink on government-mandated EVs are now announcing expansions instead of write-downs.
Midwest factory towns are getting plants back.
And American families buying a new truck next year will pay roughly a thousand dollars less than they would have under Biden's green dream.
That's the difference between a government that serves the people and one that experiments on them.
Sources:
- U.S. Department of Transportation, "President Trump & Transportation Secretary Sean P. Duffy Unveil New 'Freedom Means Affordable Cars' Initiative," DOT.gov, December 3, 2025.
- "Trump Approves Rollback of Fuel Economy Rules, Says Automakers Will Expand US Output," BigGo Finance, September 28, 2026.
- "Trump Says He Approved Fuel Economy Standards, Rolling Back Biden-Era Rules," CNBC, September 26, 2026.
- "Trump Says New Fuel Economy Standards Approved, Ending Biden EV Mandate," The Epoch Times, September 27, 2026.
- "Trump Terminates Biden's EV Mandate, Promises Cheaper Cars for American Families," Townhall, September 26, 2026.
- "STLA, F, GM Climb Overnight As Trump Clears Fuel Economy Rollback," StockTwits/Cedar News, September 28, 2026.
