The Biden administration is cutting car pollution and incentivizing automakers to produce electric vehicles. Right-wing media repeatedly misconstrued these efforts, falsely claiming they were attempting to take away voters’ gas-powered cars or forcing them to buy electric vehicles. No such federal mandate exists. Yet now the Trump-Vance campaign has adopted this false claim.

• The EPA finalized a tailpipe emissions rule in March, but it was not a mandate. In March, the EPA established tailpipe emissions standards for the auto industry in a bid to slash greenhouse gas emissions. According to NPR, “The EPA rules are not written as an EV mandate or a ban on the sale of gas cars. … Instead, the EPA sets standards that apply across an entire fleet – meaning an automaker still can make vehicles with higher emissions, as long as they also make enough very low or zero-emission vehicles that it averages out.” [NPR, 3/20/24]
   
• E&E News clarified that “there is no EV ‘mandate’ from the administration, although President Joe Biden and Vice President Harris have backed a series of climate policies that seek to incentivize the production and purchasing of EVs.” [ E&E News, 9/3/24]
   
• The New York Times also wrote of the EPA rule that it “does not mandate sales of electric vehicles, and consumers can still buy and drive gas-powered cars.” [The New York Times, 3/20/24]
   
• The Inflation Reduction Act allocated billions toward supporting the adoption of EVs through tax credits, loans, and funding for charging networks, critical minerals, and battery manufacturing. Harris cast the tie-breaking vote that passed the Inflation Reduction Act, which created $47 billion in EV investment on top of tax credits and loans. [Atlas EV Hub, 9/2/22; accessed 9/6/22; Twitter/X, 8/7/24]
   
• Harris also oversaw parts of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act that distributed funding to school districts for electric buses and to states for EV charging stations.The act, also known as the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, provided $7.5 billion to build a network of charging stations, and $900 million of that went to the electric school bus initiative. [AP News, 12/13/21; Spectrum News, 5/29/24]

• Former Texas Gov. Rick Perry and Fox contributor Tammy Bruce claimed that “the EV mandate” is an example of Harris “moving money into these Green New Deal projects.” On The Evening Edit, Bruce said that Harris admitted during her CNN interview that “the Inflation Reduction Act was about moving money into those, that New Green Deal projects.” “Yeah, and that’s what this administration is all about … pushing money into these programs. The EV mandate’s a great example of it,” said Perry. [Fox Business, The Evening Edit, 8/30/24]
   
• On Newsmax’s American Agenda, right-wing commentator Tom Del Beccaro said, “Michigan really should be easy for Trump at this point. They — Kamala put in the EV mandates. She’ll do it again, and the EV mandates have been a disaster.” [Newsmax, American Agenda, 8/29/24]
   
• The Washington Examiner falsely characterized tax credits in the IRA as an “EV mandate.” “Kamala Harris’ EV mandate costs taxpayers $7,500 and Ford $44,000 per car,” the article said. “Kamala Harris has debuted yet another 180-degree policy reversal via press release,” the article said. [The Washington Examiner, 8/28/24]
   
• Fox host Sean Hannity called the EPA rule a “ban” and claimed that the administration is “finding any way they can to trick you, the American people, into supporting something that many Americans don't want.” Fox contributor Ari Fleischer, former White House press secretary under George W. Bush, said, “I think all of us want to do something about carbon emissions, etc., but the best way to do it is not through command and control mandates that will not work.” [Fox News, Hannity, 3/20/24]
   

• In August, Harris’ director of rapid response, Ammar Moussa, wrote in an email to supporters that “Vice President Harris does not support an electric vehicle mandate.” [The Hill, 8/29/24]
   
• On Hannity, Fox host Jeanine Pirro said that Harris “can’t say she is against the EV mandate when she is the one who, I believe, sponsored the bill. And in addition to that, the bill had times built in where, after 2030 you had to have only 50 percent of the cars could be fossil fuel or gas-fueled, and by 2040-45 -- I mean, these are not flip-flops, Joe. These are lies." [Fox News, Hannity, 8/29/24]
   
• On The Faulkner Focus, Fox News contributor Steve Hilton claimed that Harris “does want to take away your car.” Hilton said, “They claim that it’s not a mandate because it’s not mandating what you buy, it only mandates what can be sold. As if there is a difference between those two things. … As far as it stands today, Kamala Harris does want to take away your car, she does want to take away your truck.” [Fox News, The Faulkner Focus, 8/28/24]

• At an August 8 press conference at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida, Trump said that if Harris becomes president, “everybody’s going to be forced to buy an electric car, which they're not going to do, because they don't want that. People want gasoline-propelled cars. They want hybrids. They want to have everything, and they want electric.” [Politico, 8/8/24]
   
• In March, when the Biden administration finalized a new Environmental Protection Agency rule that set strict limits on pollution from new gas-powered cars, Trump campaign national press secretary Karoline Leavitt called the move a “job-killing electric vehicle mandate at the federal level.” [FoxNews.com, 3/28/24]
   
• Trump’s official campaign account posted on X: “Crooked Joe Biden’s INSANE and RADICAL EV mandates will BAN your gasoline-powered vehicles and force you to buy expensive and unreliable electric vehicles. President Trump will always protect your FREEDOM to drive what you want!” [Twitter/X, 3/20/24]