EPA To Reverse Finding That Greenhouse Gases Are Bad For Humans

Happy Wednesday! It’s July 30, 2025, and this is The Morning Shift, your daily roundup of the top automotive headlines from around the world, in one place. This is where you’ll find the most important stories that are shaping the way Americans drive and get around.

In this morning’s edition, we’re looking at the EPA’s new ruling in the face of all science, as well as how Porsche and Aston Martin are responding to tariffs. We’ll also look at how Toyota’s weathered the trade war storm, and the desperation of lithium miners in a world with fewer EVs than they’d hoped.

The dangers of greenhouse gases, to both our environment and the people that live within it, have been known for decades. The science has long been settled, but the science is inconvenient for the people who make their money selling greenhouse gas emitters. So, in the face of scientific consensus, the Trump administration has found a new response: Nuh-uh. From the New York Times:

Lee Zeldin, the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, said on Tuesday the Trump administration would revoke the scientific determination that underpins the government’s legal authority to combat climate change.

Speaking at a truck dealership in Indianapolis, Mr. Zeldin said the E.P.A. planned to rescind the 2009 declaration, known as the endangerment finding, which concluded that planet-warming greenhouse gases pose a threat to public health. The Obama and Biden administrations used that determination to set strict limits on greenhouse gas emissions from cars, power plants and other industrial sources of pollution.

“The proposal would, if finalized, amount to the largest deregulatory action in the history of the United States,” Mr. Zeldin said. He said the proposal would also erase limits on greenhouse gas emissions from cars and trucks on the nation’s roads.

Scientific consensus is often overturned, but it’s generally overturned by new, more accurate science. That’s not what’s happening here, no prior theories are being disproven based on new data. This is just looking at decades of scientific research into a thing that’s killing us, and simply saying that it’s good actually. We live in hell and it’s only getting worse. 

The U.S. has a tariff deal with the European Union, sort of. We at least know that cars will be subject to a 15% tariff, which is a massive hike from the 2.5% tariff they faced before the Trump administration. Now that that number is set in stone, automakers are responding the simplest way they know how: Raising prices. From Reuters:

European luxury carmakers including Porsche and Aston Martin have shot to the front of the grid with U.S. price hikes, which could point the way for bigger brands to follow in their wake as companies pass on the cost of tariffs.

…

On Wednesday, Volkswagen’s luxury brand Porsche said it had raised U.S. prices by between 2.3% and 3.6% in July, with no plans for now to establish a U.S. production presence – a move that would let it avoid the levies.

“This is not a storm that will pass,” Porsche CEO Oliver Blume said after the company cut its full-year profit target and flagged a $462 million hit from tariffs in the first half. “We continue to face significant challenges around the world.”

…

British sports-car maker Aston Martin  said it had made incremental price increases in the United States since last month, issuing a profit warning citing a hit from U.S. import tariffs and prolonged suppressed Asian demand.

As of yet, no automaker has matched the tariff hike with a 7.5% flat price increase across its lineup. It’s not inconceivable that cars do make that jump, but companies may try to conceal it in model year changes or facelifts to help the pill go down. 

Toyota, though, is unlikely to jack up its prices to such a degree. The company’s already doing well enough, already moving enough units to the U.S., that it simply may not need to hike MSRPs. Lower profits, higher volume, these things can come out in the wash. From Automotive News:

Toyota shrugged off the impact of U.S. tariffs on vehicles and parts in June as its auto exports to the U.S. kept climbing and helped drive record sales for the world’s biggest automaker.

Toyota’s exports to the U.S. rose 16 percent to 52,745 vehicles in June, more than two months after U.S. President Donald Trump imposed duties on shipments from Japan and other countries..

The upswing helped fuel a 2.7 percent increase in global sales to 937,246 in June for Toyota Motor Corp., including volume from the Toyota and Lexus brands as well as deliveries from the Daihatsu minicar subsidiary and Hino truck-making unit.

Japan gets the same auto tariff rate as Europe, so we’ll see how Toyota fares as both the company and its consumers start to feel the effects of that. One thing’s for sure, though: Even from a company the size of Toyota, don’t expect prices to drop any time soon. 

When EVs were skyrocketing in adoption, thinkpieces the world over began to wonder if we even had enough lithium on Earth to meet demand. Now that demand outside of China is beginning to stagnate as EVs face the problem of crossing the chasm, and lithium miners are being caught with their pants down. From Bloomberg:

A slew of corporate reports from Australian lithium producers has thrown a fresh spotlight this week on an industry riven by write-downs, cost controls and hard choices as the world’s electric-vehicle transition runs into headwinds.

IGO Ltd. and Mineral Resources Ltd. flagged potential impairments, Pilbara Minerals Ltd. stressed cost-cutting efforts, and Liontown Resources Ltd. said it had to resell some material originally earmarked as offtake for Ford Motor Co.

“I don’t think there’s anyone globally making much in the way of margins there or enjoying the period we’re in,” IGO’s chief executive officer Ivan Vella said on an investor call Wednesday.

Now that the United States is fully shoving its head in the sand with regard to climate science, what will that mean for the EV market? Whatever it is, it can’t be good. 

We haven’t made much progress on the “achieving the standard of healthcare offered by any other wealthy nation” front in the decades since. 

It’s kind of weird that Ty Segall so rarely hits for me, because I’m a fan of seemingly everyone in his orbit. He’s even on this album!