One week ago this morning, the U.S. and the world woke up to learn that Donald Trump would be the next president of the United States.
The shockwaves of that election are still reverberating, and will do so for quite some time to come.
Among the groups concerned are environmentalists, clean-energy advocates, and electric-car proponents.
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Trump has called climate science "********," among other interesting statements, but he does not appear to be on record directly concerning electric cars.
Donald TrumpDonald Trump
Many of his campaign statements have also directly contradicted each other, making it difficult to ascertain what his actual policies might hold.
This site will take a longer look at what policy effects the Trump presidency may have on decarbonization, clean energy, environmental policy, and zero-emission vehicles in a series of future articles.
Meanwhile, what's left for the auto industry is greatly increased uncertainty, as was pointed out in an article in industry trade journal Ward's Auto by Steven Szakaly, chief economist of the National Automobile Dealers Association.
And in general, the global automakers do not like uncertainty.
The most recent case in point came in the waning days of the George W. Bush administration, which refused to issue new rules for corporate average fuel economy after the Supreme Court ruled that the EPA had a duty to regulate emissions of carbon dioxide from motor vehicles.
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By early 2009, when Barack Obama was inaugurated, the industry was less than two years away from the 2012 model year—and had no idea what fuel-economy standards it would have to meet that year.
Given the billion-dollar investments over multi-year periods automakers have to commit to, that is not a situation any of them remotely relish.
Still, the Trump presidency boosts the chances that emission rules, fuel-economy requirements, perhaps even assembly-plant locations will be upended if the administration abrogates existing laws or passes new legislation to change it....
