NHTSA final CAFE rule sets standards without counting EV fuel economy

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's final Safer Affordable Fuel-Efficient (SAFE) Vehicles Rule III, published in the Federal Register on September 30, 2026 at 91 FR 61988 (docket NHTSA-2025-0491), sets corporate average fuel economy (CAFE) standards for model years 2022 through 2031 that it says "are based solely on light-duty vehicles powered by gasoline and diesel fuels, a category that includes non-plug-in hybrid vehicles"; NHTSA "has not considered the imputed fuel-economy performance of EVs or the electric operation of plug-in hybrid electric vehicles," citing 49 U.S.C. 32902(h); it takes effect November 30, 2026. NHTSA estimates it raises the eventual average of manufacturers' CAFE requirements to about 34.9 mpg by MY 2031 rather than about 49.3 mpg under the 2024 standards, its No-Action Alternative, and says the footprint-based target curves, not the mpg figures, are the standards.

Passenger car standards rise 0.90 percent per year from the newly finalized MY 2022 standards through MY 2029, then one percent per year through MY 2031, light trucks 0.51 percent, then one percent; for both fleets the rule calls MY 2030 stringency a bridge between the vehicle classification updates, which move lighter crossovers from the light truck fleet into the passenger car fleet and which NHTSA deferred to MY 2030 from the MY 2028 it proposed.

Inter-manufacturer credit trading, which the rule says "has also resulted in a windfall for EV-exclusive manufacturers that sell credits to other non-EV manufacturers," ends beginning with credits earned in MY 2028. Credits earned through MY 2027 stay purchasable and usable for up to five model years after they were generated, and the rule says automakers can still transfer earned credits between vehicle categories in their own fleets and carry their own credits forward and backward across model years.

The rule projects that absolute fleetwide fuel consumption declines over time under every alternative it considered, and that its preferred alternative results in a 4.6 percent increase in gasoline consumption through calendar year 2050 against the No-Action baseline, which it says does not negate the broader reductions in aggregate fuel use. The Department of Transportation said on September 28, 2026 that Secretary Sean P. Duffy released the rule that day and calls the initiative it finalizes "Freedom Means Affordable Cars"; the release says NHTSA estimates the standards would achieve a fleet average fuel economy of 34.9 mpg by MY 2031, up from 30.1 mpg for MY 2024, where the rule's 34.9 mpg is an average of requirements against a 49.3 mpg No-Action Alternative. DOT's EV-policy record also includes the RAISE grant withdrawal Boston sued over on September 28, 2026; the complaint says DOT's September 9, 2025 letter gave the inclusion of EV chargers as its single reason.