President Trump’s nominee for head of the Department of Transport, Sean Duffy, has signaled imposing potential extra fees for electric vehicles and said that he plans to let NHTSA continue its investigation into Tesla’s advanced driver assist systems.
Duffy is going through his U.S. Senate hearing today.
The former lawmaker and lobbyist is one of the least controversial of Trump’s nominees. Unlike his other colleges going through the gauntlet this week, he isn’t being grilled for his morals or past controversies and we are actually learning some about his planned policies for the Department of Transport.
For example, Duffy signaled that he thinks electric vehicles should pay extra taxes to cover their use of the roads. Although, he didn’t elaborate how he plans to do it:
“They should pay for use of our roads. How to do that, I think, is a little more challenging.”
The US claims to use gas taxes to pay for roads. However, the federal government hasn’t increase taxes on gas since 1993 and the road infrastructure is often covered by other funds than taxes.
Some states have implemented higher registration fees on electric vehicles to address their cost of using the roads. These fees have been criticized by environmentalists as being extra taxes on EVs that don’t account for the benefits on the environment at a time when the US is already falling behind the rest of the world in EV adoption.
Duffy was also asked about what he plans to do with NHTSA’s investigation into Tesla, considering that his future boss, Donald Trump, is getting closer to Tesla CEO Elon Musk, who donated over $240 million to Trump’s campaign.
Senator Ed Markey asked:
“Regardless of outside political pressure, can you commit to allowing (NHTSA) to follow the evidence and operate objectively?”
Duffy Tried to reassure the Senator:
“I will let NHTSA do their investigation.”
Tesla is currently under several NHTSA investigation regarding its advanced driver assist features, which it is deploying in unique and much more agressive ways than competitors.
In October 2024, NHTSA launched a broad investigation into Tesla’s Full Self-Driving (Supervised) suite of features following a fatal crash.
Earlier this month, the agency launched another more specific investigation in Tesla’s ‘Actually Smart Summon’ feature, which is sold under the Full Self-Driving package, after over a dozen accidents were reported a few months after the feature was released.
Electrek’s Take
Trump has some wild nominees for his new administration, but I have to say that Duffy is one of the least scary ones.
He is the least controversial, meaning he doesn’t have 20 different scandals like most others. He is a TV reality star like Trump, but he also has a serious background as a lawyer, congressman, and lobbyist.
At the end of the day, the number one criteria to be nominated by Trump is to be a Trump loyalist – way before being competent for the job. So I can’t say that I have high hopes for Duffy.
I wouldn’t be surprised if he tries to throw some sticks into the wheels of electric vehicles. Fees for road usage could be one of them. I agree that it is a problem that needs to be fixed at some point, but it shouldn’t take priority over increasing EV adoption as the US falls way behind the rest of the world.
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