The only thing more offensive than how expensive a new car is is how expensive a used car is. But depending on when you bought it and its condition, you could trade in an old car and get more than you paid for it. That was a side-effect of liberal policy from Cars for Clunkers under Obama to the supply chain issues we experienced under COVID, which Biden did nothing to address, and he clearly made it worse.
Worse, and not just because, despite the “windfall” from the rising value of used vehicles, everything else was still that much more expensive. Yeah, I could sell my house for blank, as another example, but then I have to spend it all and then some for something else. It’s a lateral move that ends with no leftover equity.
Trump has been working to address a lot of problems handed down to him by your government. Car prices being just one of them. He has worked to onshore everything. Ramped up fossil fuel production and availability, without which nothing can be made, especially automobiles. His EPA repealed the endangerment finding and is freeing manufacturers from arbitrary and pointless mileage standards. He is also ending the EV scam.
Despite a barrage of Biden-era subsidies and aggressive Environmental Protection Agency mandates designed to force a transition, the public has stayed away from EVs.
- The Biden administration wanted 50% of all new car sales to be EVs by 2030 — four short years away.
- However, EVs only account for roughly 6% of new car sales — a far cry from the “tipping point” the climate activists promised.
The strategy was to use your tax dollars to bribe both the manufacturer and the buyer. The government funneled billions into the industry, incentivizing the Big Three to build expensive, limited-range cars that require a charging infrastructure that simply doesn’t exist in most of the country.
You know the old saying: When you subsidize something, you get more of it — even if nobody wants it. The result was a glut of high-priced electric “compliance cars” sitting on dealer lots while the demand for reliable, affordable gasoline trucks and SUVs remained sky-high.
While all the major auto-makers held hostage have since had to write down billions in losses, before they did so, they offset EV losses by charging more for cars and trucks people wanted.
Without the threat of “EV mandates” and compounding fines, Detroit is finally free to pivot back to what it does best. We are already seeing the results:
- Stellantis is refocusing on high-value hybrid Jeeps and Ram trucks.
- Ford is “slamming the brakes” on money-losing EV platforms to prioritize its profitable Ford Blue (gasoline) division.
- GM is repurposing assembly lines back to internal combustion engines.
The “EV meltdown” of 2026 serves as a permanent reminder that the marketplace is more powerful than any government bureaucrat. You cannot mandate innovation, and you certainly cannot mandate what a family in Connecticut or Texas chooses to park in their driveway.
With inflation down and stable and the EV mandates off the table, at least for now, auto makers cna focus time, money, and energy on making cars people want for less. If new cars start to cost less, used cars will as well, and give the cost commitment, even after processing deflating a little, fingers crossed, this will free up incomes for other parts of the economy.
Or, at least I hope that’s what happens.
