WASHINGTON— The Environmental Protection Agency today released its annual Automotive Trends Report, which shows that automakers continue to sell millions of gas guzzlers and a relative handful of electric and other clean vehicles. But what progress they’ve made against pollution is mostly due to tougher Biden emissions standards.

The 2023 new vehicle fleet spewed 18 grams per mile less carbon pollution than in 2022 — a 4.3% annual improvement. But the standards required a 6.5% year-over-year improvement. Fuel economy rose 1.1 mile per gallon.

“Tougher Biden standards cut emissions, but automakers dragged their tailpipes, driving the reduction to less than the rules required,” said Dan Becker, director of the Center for Biological Diversity’s Safe Climate Transport Campaign. “To add injury to insult, Trump threatens to gut federal and state clean car standards and consumer tax credits, leaving automakers free to guzzle and pollute, and sticking consumers with high gas bills.”

“The future of the auto is electric and the Chinese company BYD already sold nearly 2 million EVs this year,” said Becker. “If Trump guts clean car programs, automakers will be in the driver's seat. They can decide to make EVs in large numbers or enroll in ‘Mandarin for Auto Execs.’ This report shows that clean car standards should be strengthened, not weakened, since automakers won’t slash pollution and improve gas mileage unless strong standards make them do so.”

After failing to meet the EPA standard, automakers are lobbying Trump to riddle the rules with new loopholes and weaken penalties for cheating.

The report also noted that GM got caught falsifying the emissions from 5.9 million model year vehicles from model years 2012-2018. It had to surrender 50 million tons of credits.

“One positive finding is that EV sales nearly doubled from around 5% in 2022 to 10% in 2024, progress that’s at risk from Trump’s rollback threats,” said Becker.

Here are the key details in the Trends report:

• 2023 fleetwide emissions improved over 2022 by 18g/mile of CO2 or 4.3%, though the standard required a 6.5% improvement. Fuel economy rose 1.1 mpg to 27.1 mpg.
• The three U.S.-based manufacturers — Stellantis (formerly Fiat Chrysler), GM, and Ford — again delivered the worst fuel efficiency and spewed the most pollution of all major carmakers that sell in the U.S.
• Ninety percent of new vehicles are fossil fueled. Only 10% of 2023 vehicles were electric and 2% plug-in hybrids; 7% were full hybrids.
• Horsepower, size, vehicle weight and fuel economy increased to their highest levels ever.
• EVs continued to make up a small percentage of most automakers’ fleets, with the exception of Tesla. Stellantis, Honda and Mazda made less than 1% EVs. Toyota sold only 1% EVs, Subaru 2%, Nissan and Kia 3%, GM 4%, Ford 7%, Hyundai 7%, BMW 10%, VW 12% and Mercedes 19%. Tesla made 100% EVs.
• Only two companies — Tesla and BMW — met the standards without resorting to loopholes. Rather than delivering the required gas mileage, the others failed to meet the standard or relied on credits, either by buying them (mostly from Tesla) or by equipping vehicles with features like “passive cabin ventilation” that don’t actually improve emissions.
• GM and Stellantis spewed far more than their individual standards. GM emitted 39 g/mi more than its 232g/mi standard. Stellantis was even worse, pumping out 43g/mi more than its 236g/mi standard.
• Four companies — GM, Mazda, Honda and Subaru — actually delivered worse fleet-wide gas mileage and emissions than they did 5 years ago. Only Mercedes did significantly better than it did 5 years ago.