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    Senate Republicans Kill California’s Ban on Gas-Powered Cars

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    In 50 years, California’s authority to set environmental rules that are tougher than national standards had never been challenged by Congress. Until now.The Senate on Thursday blocked California’s landmark plan to phase out the sale of new gasoline-powered vehicles, setting up a legal battle that could shape the electric car market in the United States.The 51-44 vote was a victory for the oil and gas industry and for Republicans who muscled through the vote by deploying an unusual legislative tactic that Democrats denounced as a “nuclear” option that would affect the way the Senate operates way beyond climate policy.The repeal deals a blow to California’s ambition of accelerating the nation’s transition to electric vehicles. But the consequences will ripple across the country. That’s because 11 other states intended to follow California’s plan and stop selling new gas-powered cars by 2035. Together, they account for about 40 percent of the U.S. auto market.The resolution, which had already been approved by the House, now goes to President Trump’s desk. Mr. Trump, who opposes clean energy and has taken particular umbrage at California’s efforts to reduce the use of fossil fuels, is expected to sign it into law.California leaders have promised to challenge the Senate vote and try to restore the ban.“This Senate vote is illegal,” said California Gov. Gavin Newsom, Democrat of California. “Republicans went around their own parliamentarian to defy decades of precedent. We won’t stand by as Trump Republicans make America smoggy again — undoing work that goes back to the days of Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan — all while ceding our economic future to China.“California’s auto policy was allowed under permission granted by the Biden administration. The 1970 Clean Air Act specifies that California can receive waivers from the Environmental Protection Agency to enact clean air standards that are tougher than federal limits because the state has historically had the most polluted air in the nation. Federal law also allows other states to adopt California’s standards under certain circumstances.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Tariffs Push Honda to Move Production From Canada to U.S.

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      President Trump’s trade war again tests Canada’s new government. Honda is also canceling plans for a major electric vehicle factory in Canada.In the face of U.S. tariffs, Honda said on Monday that it would shift production of one of its popular vehicles from Ontario to a U.S. factory and postpone an $11 billion plan to make electric vehicles and batteries in Canada.The announcement came less than a month after Honda denied a report in the Japanese media that President Trump’s tariffs would force it to pull back in Canada.It also poses a major challenge for Prime Minister Mark Carney of Canada, who won a stunning victory in last month’s election after portraying himself as the leader best suited for dealing with President Trump and the trade war between the two countries.The United States has imposed a 25 percent tariff on many Canadian autos and auto parts.Honda’s chief executive, Toshiro Mibe, said in a news conference in Japan that the decision to move the manufacturing of the CR-V sport utility vehicle to the United States was part of the company’s plans to “optimize” production to reduce the effects of tariffs.He blamed sluggish growth of the electric vehicle market for the decision to hold off on an $11 billion expansion of the Ontario factory complex, which would have added battery and electric vehicle production.The expansion, which was backed by substantial financial incentives from the governments of Canada and Ontario, was characterized last year by Justin Trudeau, the prime minister at the time, as the largest investment by an automaker in Canadian history. It was projected to employ 1,000 people and was the signature piece of a series of government-backed moves to shift Canada’s auto industry toward electric vehicles.The effect of the CR-V production move was not immediately known. But, like all auto assembly lines in Canada, the majority of the CR-Vs made in Canada are shipped to the United States.Honda Canada did not immediately respond to a request for comment. It currently employs about 4,200 people at its plant in Alliston, Ontario, which also builds Civic sedans as well as engines.Mr. Carney’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Honda’s decisions. He is set to swear in his new cabinet Tuesday.The announcement by Honda is the latest in a series of moves by the auto industry to pull back plans for expansion in Canada after the imposition of tariffs by the United States.Stellantis suspended the conversion of a factory in a Toronto suburb to make electric and gasoline powered Jeeps. It has shut down its plant in Windsor, Ontario, which makes minivans and Dodge muscle cars, for a total of three weeks and is also reducing its production schedule during the coming weeks.General Motors’ Canadian subsidiary suspended production of an electric commercial van in Ontario. Ford’s lone Canadian assembly plant, in Oakville, Ontario, has been idle for nearly a year after the company abandoned plans to make electric vehicles there. Instead, the plant will eventually start making gasoline-powered pickup trucks. More

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      William L. Porter, Designer of Classic American Cars, Dies at 93

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      As a senior designer at G.M., he helped create the exuberant, elongated shape of 1960s and ’70s cars like the Pontiac GTO, the Bonneville and the Trans Am.William L. Porter, a car designer who helped create the shapes of some of the most celebrated American vehicles of the late 1960s and early ’70s, died on April 25 at his home in Whitmore Lake, Mich. He was 93.His death was confirmed by his son, Adam, who did not specify a cause.As a senior designer at General Motors for more than three decades, Mr. Porter was intimately involved in determining the appearance of numerous cars that were uniquely American in their exuberant, elongated design and curvaceous forms. These were big, sleek cars for long, empty American roads, and for cities filled with the parking lots that could accommodate them, light years from the compact boxes made for Europe’s narrow streets.Mr. Porter made this sketch of the Pontiac GTO body in 1962, when he was just beginning to conceive of the car that would become the 1968 GTO.via Porter familyA 1969 iteration of the Pontiac GTO design.iStock Editorial/Getty Images PlusThe Pontiac GTO model produced in 1968 and 1969, with its endless hood and smooth, tapering back — its “monocoque shell form with elliptical pressure bulges over the wheels,” as Mr. Porter put it in an interview in 2000 — was one of his signature creations.G.M. made him chief designer at what it called the Pontiac 1 Studio in 1968, and he held that position until 1972, before going on to other senior design positions. In the early 1970s, he directed the design of the company’s LeMans, Catalina and Bonneville cars, which had tapering forms with jutting trunks, in keeping with his aesthetic.“I was taken with a plainer, curvaceous look featuring long, muscular shapes based on elliptical vocabulary,” Mr. Porter, a connoisseur and collector of American design, including Tiffany glass and Arts and Crafts furniture, said in an interview with Hot Rod magazine in 2007.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Why Democrats Joined Republicans to Block a California Climate Policy

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      Some said they worried that California’s planned ban on gas-powered vehicles would raise the price of cars. Another cited “intense and misleading lobbying” by the oil industry.Representative Lou Correa, a Democrat who represents parts of Orange County, Calif., drives a hybrid car and wants the federal government to tackle climate change.But he joined 34 other Democrats last week to help Republicans repeal his state’s landmark requirement that all new vehicles sold in California be electric or otherwise nonpolluting by 2035. In doing so, he helped President Trump and the Republican majority to undercut the nation’s transition away from gasoline-powered cars.“I don’t like giving Trump a win,” Mr. Correa said in an interview after the vote. But electric vehicles remain expensive and impractical in his heavily blue-collar district, he said.“We just finished an election where every poll I’m seeing, everybody I talk to, says, ‘You guys need to listen to the working class, the middle class people,” Mr. Correa said. “I’m listening to my constituents who are saying ‘don’t kill us.’”The 246-to-164 vote in the House stunned environmentalists, who said they were struggling to understand why nearly three dozen Democrats voted to kill one of the most ambitious climate policies in the country. For the past few years, Democrats have overwhelmingly voted for stronger policies to tackle global warming.Some wonder whether that unity is starting to fray in the face of intense lobbying and worries about rising prices amid Mr. Trump’s trade wars.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      GM Cuts Profit Forecast by 20% and Says Auto Tariffs Will Cost It Billions

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      General Motors now expects to earn a lot less than it did before President Trump imposed 25% tariffs on imported cars and auto parts.General Motors cut its profit forecast for 2025 on Thursday by more than 20 percent and said that the Trump administration’s tariffs would increase its costs by $4 billion to $5 billion this year.In a conference call with analysts, G.M. executives said the company now expects to make $8.2 billion to $10.1 billion this year, down from a previous forecast of $11.2 billion to $12.5 billion.“G.M.’s business is fundamentally strong as we adapt to the new trade policy environment,” the company’s chief executive, Mary T. Barra, said.In April, President Trump imposed tariffs of 25 percent on imported vehicles and will begin imposing the same duty on imported auto parts on Saturday. On Tuesday the president modified how the tariffs are applied to give automakers some relief, including partial reimbursement for tariffs on imported parts for two years.Ms. Barra said G.M. hopes to offset about 30 percent of the impact of the tariffs by increasing production in U.S. plants, cutting costs, and working with suppliers to raise their domestic production of parts and components.G.M. had previously said it was increasing pickup truck production at a plant near Fort Wayne, Ind., which will reduce the number of vehicles it imports from Canada and Mexico. Ms. Barra said output at the Fort Wayne factory would increase by about 50,000 trucks this year.She also said G.M. now plans to make more battery modules in its U.S. plants to raise the portion of domestic content in its electric vehicles.About $2 billion in tariff-related cost increases will come from vehicles that are made in Canada, Mexico and South Korea and sold in the United States.Analysts have predicted that the tariffs will add thousands of dollars to the cost of new cars and trucks, and some or all of that would be passed on to consumers. In the call, G.M.’s chief financial officer, Paul Jacobson, said the company now expects new vehicle prices to rise 0.5 percent to 1 percent this year, he added. Previously, the company had forecast that pricing would fall by 1 percent to 1.5 percent.Other automakers are also planning to produce more vehicles in the United States. Mercedes-Benz said Thursday that it would build a new vehicle at an Alabama factory as part of what the German carmaker called a “deepening commitment” to manufacturing in the United States.While the company did not mention tariffs, Mercedes and other carmakers have been at pains in recent weeks to emphasize how many cars they already build in the United States and their plans to make more. Mercedes did not provide details about the car, except to say that it would be a new design tailored to the U.S. market and begin production in 2027.The company’s factory near Tuscaloosa, Ala., primarily assembles luxury sport utility vehicles, including electric models, for sale in the United States and export to other markets.Jack Ewing More

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      House Votes to Block California Plan to Ban New Gas-Powered Cars in 2035

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      Republicans, joined by a handful of Democrats, voted to eliminate California’s electric vehicle policy, which had been adopted by 11 other states.The House on Thursday voted to bar California from imposing its landmark ban on the sale of new gasoline-powered vehicles by 2035, the first step in an effort by the Republican majority to stop a state policy designed to accelerate the transition to electric vehicles.The 246-to-164 vote came a day after Republicans, joined by a few Democrats, voted to block California from requiring dealers in the state to sell an increasing percentage of zero-emission, medium and heavy-duty trucks over time. And, lawmakers also voted on Wednesday to stop a state effort to reduce California’s levels of smog.All three policies were implemented under permissions granted to California by the Biden administration. They pose an extraordinary challenge to California’s longstanding authority under the 1970 Clean Air Act to set pollution standards that are more strict than federal limits.And the legality of the congressional action is in dispute. Two authorities, the Senate parliamentarian and the Government Accountability Office, have ruled that Congress cannot revoke the waivers.California leaders condemned the actions and promised a battle.Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, called the move “lawless” and an attack on states’ rights. “Trump Republicans are hellbent on making California smoggy again,” Governor Newsom said in a statement.“Clean air didn’t used to be political,” he said, adding, “The only thing that’s changed is that big polluters and the right-wing propaganda machine have succeeded in buying off the Republican Party.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Trump Administration Looks to Take Steps to Ease Pain From Car Tariffs

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      The planned concessions to give automakers more time to relocate production to the United States would still leave substantial tariffs on imported cars and car parts.The Trump administration said it plans to announce measures as early as Tuesday to ease the impact of tariffs on imported cars and car parts to give automakers more time to relocate production to the United States.Tariffs of 25 percent on imported vehicles and on auto parts will remain in place. But the tariffs will be modified so that they are not “stacked” with other tariffs, for example on steel and aluminum, a White House spokesman said. Automakers will not have to pay tariffs on those metals, widely used in automobiles, on top of the tariffs on cars and parts.In addition, automakers will be reimbursed for some of the cost of tariffs on imported components. The reimbursement will amount to up to 3.75 percent of the value of a new car in the first year, but will be phased out over two years, the spokesman confirmed.A 25 percent tariff on imported cars took effect April 3. On Saturday, the tariffs are set to be extended to include imported parts.“President Trump is building an important partnership with both the domestic automakers and our great American workers,” Howard Lutnick, the commerce secretary, said in a statement. “This deal is a major victory for the president’s trade policy by rewarding companies who manufacture domestically, while providing runway to manufacturers who have expressed their commitment to invest in America and expand their domestic manufacturing.”But even with these changes, there will still be substantial tariffs on imported cars and auto parts, which will raise prices for new and used cars by thousands of dollars and increase the cost of repairs and insurance premiums.The modification to the tariffs was reported earlier by The Wall Street Journal. Mr. Lutnick helped automakers secure a major exemption from tariffs in March and has taken on a role advocating relief for some industries hit by the levies.Automakers welcomed the change. “We believe the president’s leadership is helping level the playing field for companies like G.M. and allowing us to invest even more in the U.S. economy,” Mary T. Barra, the chief executive of General Motors, said in a statement on Monday. “We appreciate the productive conversations with the president and his administration and look forward to continuing to work together.” More

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      Tesla’s Falling Profit May Pressure Elon Musk to Return to Day Job

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      The carmaker is expected to report a decline in quarterly earnings after Tesla’s brand suffered because of its chief executive’s role in the Trump administration.Tesla is expected to report on Tuesday that its profits fell in the first three months of the year, which could increase the pressure on Elon Musk, the automaker’s chief executive, to curtail his work for President Trump and spend more time managing the company.Wall Street analysts expect Tesla to say its net profit declined slightly from $1.1 billion in the first quarter of 2024.Tesla sales have been slumping because of intense competition from Chinese carmakers like BYD, a lack of new models and Mr. Musk’s support of far-right causes, which has turned away some liberals and centrists from buying Tesla vehicles.Tesla remains the most valuable automaker in the world as measured by its stock price, but its shares have lost about half their value since mid-December as investors have grown more pessimistic about the company’s prospects and concerned about Mr. Musk’s role in the Trump administration.Tesla has steadily lost market share to Chinese carmakers and more established automakers, like General Motors, Volkswagen and Hyundai, that have been offering a growing selection of electric vehicles.Mr. Musk’s company once hoped to sell 20 million vehicles a year by the end of the decade, twice as many as Toyota. But sales have been sliding after climbing to 1.8 million in 2023. Last year, the company sold 1.7 million cars, and its global sales fell 13 percent in the first quarter of 2025 from a year earlier.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Tesla U.S. Sales Plunge as G.M. and Others Make Gains

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      Tesla’s sales in the United States fell almost 9 percent in the first three months of the year even as the overall market for electric vehicles grew, according to data compiled by a research firm.Car buyers are moving away from Teslas and toward models like General Motors’ Chevrolet Equinox electric vehicle, which starts at around $35,000 and can travel more than 300 miles on a charge, Cox Automotive, the research firm, said in a report.Sales of all electric vehicles in the United States rose 11 percent during the first quarter to about 300,000 cars and light trucks, Cox said, much faster than the overall auto market, which has been flat. About 8 percent of new domestic car sales were electric, Cox said, a slight increase from 2024.“Despite many obstacles — and what you may read elsewhere — electric vehicle sales continue to grow at a healthy pace in the U.S. market,” the firm said.Tesla, whose chief executive is Elon Musk, still sells far more electric cars in the United States than any other automaker, accounting for 44 percent of the market, according to Cox. But its share has fallen from 51 percent a year earlier.The decline in Tesla’s U.S. sales mirror a global slump. The company said this month that deliveries during the quarter in all markets fell 13 percent to 337,000 vehicles.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More