Duffy kills mileage mandate; California keeps driving — SkimNews
Get the Energy newsletter
Daily energy & climate — solar, EVs, oil, the policy fights and tech bets shaping the transition. Free.
- Sean Duffy launched the 'Freedom Means Affordable Cars' initiative at DOT, claiming the rollback saves consumers $138bn over five years and reverses an 'illegal mandate' forcing expensive EV production.link ›
- California sets the de facto national standard: 19 states plus D.C. — 40% of 2022 new car sales — follow its rules, and most automakers prefer one nationwide spec to splitting production lines.link ›
- California AG Rob Bonta sued the administration over the rollback, calling it 'a thinly veiled attempt by the president to retaliate against California for choosing progress over regression.'link ›
- Tesla delivered 486,532 vehicles in Q3, beating analyst expectations and pushing the stock up in the same session.link ›
- Volvo Autonomous Solutions hauled 3 million tonnes autonomously at Boliden's Garpenberg mine in Sweden — tripling its original 2025 target of 1 million tonnes in roughly three years.link ›
- Trump told Bloomberg he is 'very seriously' looking at banning U.S. diesel exports, which EL PAÍS framed as aggravating an existing energy crisis in Europe and Latin America.link ›
- Kew Gardens' Kevin Martin says at least 400 trees died this summer matching the 2022 record, with a Kew study forecasting 73% of London's public trees dying or struggling by 2090.link ›
The Trump administration finalized its rollback of Biden-era fuel-efficiency standards this week, claiming $1,300 in savings per vehicle — but Congress had already stripped the penalties for noncompliance, leaving the federal government with a toothless rule while California effectively sets the standard for 40% of new car sales. Tesla didn't need the help anyway: its Q3 delivery print of 486,532 topped expectations, and automakers continue building to California's spec nationwide rather than splitting production lines. Sean Duffy called the old rules an 'illegal mandate' — but the mandate was already unenforceable, and the clean-car race is now running on California's track whether Washington likes it or not.
The stories behind this week
South-East England Urban Trees Dying in Record HeatIf Kew's 2090 forecast holds, Mayor Sadiq Khan's canopy-expansion target is mathematically near-impossible without a staggered replanting programme using steppe-origin species — and London would simultaneously lose up to 5°C of urban cooling just as heatwaves intensify.
Trump Considers Diesel Export BanA U.S. diesel export ban would constrain supply for import-dependent European and Latin American markets, while the domestic American impact remains the unresolved question that Investor's Business Daily flags in its headline.
Tesla Is Winning the New EV Race. Here’s How. - Barron'sA delivery print of 486,532 units — above analyst expectations — drove a same-session stock rally and was uniformly covered by major outlets as a sign Tesla is extending its lead in the EV market. Shareholders capture the immediate upside; competitors face a higher bar entering the critical year-end sales window.
Trump Admin Slashes Clean Car RulesThe rollback cuts fuel efficiency gains by up to 10% annually compared to prior rules, increasing gasoline consumption by 100 billion gallons and CO2 emissions by 5% through 2050, while saving consumers $1,300 per vehicle but benefiting oil and auto industries in the short term.
Full Self Hauling: Volvo moves 3 million tonnes of Earth, autonomouslyVolvo tripled its original 2025 pilot goal inside one mine in roughly three years, demonstrating that autonomous heavy-haul transport is graduating from pilot to scaled customer operations. The bundled service model directly targets the adoption barrier of mines lacking in-house autonomy expertise, materially lowering the threshold for other operators to follow.
Turning Commercial Buildings Into Grid FlexibilityFor utilities staring at an interconnection backlog where 75% of queued projects never get built, commercial buildings offer a faster, cheaper path to dispatchable capacity — and Edo's sub-eight-week deployment timeline shows the model can scale without new transmission. Building owners in congested zones can capture up to 5x higher capacity payments while using the same data layer to cut wasted energy.
Prince of Wales tells villagers 'holistic' approach is needed to tackle floodingThe prince's visit signals the Duchy of Cornwall — a 900-acre-estate landowner — formally pivoting toward regenerative farming and tree-planting partnerships as structural flood defenses, rather than relying solely on reactive emergency measures. By reframing flooding as an annual rather than exceptional event, William is aligning royal estate policy with the on-the-ground reality residents have reported for six years.
California Now Sets America's Car Emissions RulesCars account for roughly 16% of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, and the federal government has now effectively ceded the primary regulatory lever to a single state — one whose underlying authority is itself under legal attack. If the Supreme Court takes the separate case challenging California's right to regulate GHGs, automakers face the prospect of losing their last enforceable emissions floor, just as hybrids and EVs are gaining real market traction on their own.
Why it matters: With federal penalties already stripped and California's standard covering 40% of new car sales, the rollback changes the politics of fuel economy without changing the cars Americans actually buy.
Ask SkimNews
