Enlarge (credit: Aurich Lawson | Getty Images)

This week, the US Department of Energy and the Environmental Protection Agency have published new fuel efficiency rules that will go into effect in 2026. The rules favor both battery-electric vehicles and also plug-in hybrid EVs, but not to the degree as proposed by each agency last April.

Those would have required automakers to sell four times as many electric vehicles as they do now. This was met with a rare display of solidarity across the industry—automakers, workers, and dealers all called on the White House to slow its approach.

Under the 2023 proposals, the DOE would change the way that Corporate Average Fuel Economy regulations are calculated for model years 2027–2032 (which would take place from partway through calendar year 2026 until sometime in calendar year 2031), and the EPA would implement tougher vehicle emissions standards for light- and medium-duty vehicles for the same time period.

Enlarge / Polluted street scenes like this will remain common in the United States, which will abandon ambitious fuel efficiency standards in the face of complaints from automakers and unions. (credit: Getty Images)

It appears as if ambitious new fuel efficiency regulations that would require Americans to adopt many more electric vehicles are to be watered down. Last year, President Biden's administration published proposed new Corporate Average Fuel Economy regulations for 2027–2030, regulations that would require automakers to sell four times as many zero-emissions vehicles as they do now.

But opposition to the new CAFE standards has been fierce, and now Reuters reports that the White House is backing down and will issue new guidelines with less ambitious goals in the coming weeks.

The White House's goal had been for US EV adoption to reach 50 percent of all new light vehicle sales by 2030, rising to 60 percent by 2032. In part, it proposed changing the modifier applied to each new zero-emissions vehicle when used to calculate an automaker's fleet emissions.

Enlarge (credit: NurPhoto / Contributor | NurPhoto)

After researchers flagged verified users on X (formerly known as Twitter) as top superspreaders of Israel/Hamas misinformation and the European Union launched a probe into X, Elon Musk has vowed to get verified X users back in check.

On Sunday, Musk announced that "any posts that are corrected by @CommunityNotes"—X's community-sourced fact-checking feature—will "become ineligible for revenue share."

"The idea is to maximize the incentive for accuracy over sensationalism," Musk said, warning that "any attempts to weaponize @CommunityNotes to demonetize people will be immediately obvious, because all code and data is open source."