Trump cuts vehicle fuel economy goal to 34 mpg by 2031 from 50 mpg by 2031 under Biden

 CNBC.

AI says the current US light duty vehicle fleet gets about 26 mpg.

Trump isn't interested in Venezuela because of the drugs, it's the oil

This entire drug war is a charade. 

Trump, April 2011: "I'm only interested in Libya if we take the oil".

He just pardoned the former Honduran president sentenced to 45 years over cocaine, but he's going after the Venezuelan president over drugs?

Venezuela has 4x the proven oil reserves of the United States, tops in the world, and it's right in our backyard.

Trump isn't interested in peace and freedom in Ukraine, either. All he wants is a piece of action.

All that lizard brain cares about is money. 

 

 

The average price of gasoline is right back where it was one year ago, at about $3.06 per gallon

That new Trump administration sure has made a difference, hasn't it?

 

Imagine sitting in the dark to save on electricity when you make $115k

 Reported here:

... The effort to keep up with higher prices feels relentless to Teri Kopp, who lives in Southbury, Conn., and works as an administrator at a synagogue. “I’m tired,” she said.

Kopp and her husband Bill, an HVAC technician, earn a combined $115,000 a year. They often sit in the dark with only strings of LED lights on to save on electric costs. She is considering painting rocks to send to friends as Christmas gifts. Their biggest vacation this year, a road trip to Maine, was mostly covered by cash back from a shopping-rewards program.

Kopp, 59 years old, doesn’t see any way to quickly pay off the $15,000 in credit-card debt the family took on largely to cover medical bills for knee surgeries. She also has $30,000 in debt from her daughter’s undergraduate degree in biology, which has yet to yield any job offers in a tough labor market for new graduates.

Kopp voted for Trump last November in part because she wasn’t happy with how Biden handled the economy. She approves of the job Trump is doing but is skeptical that it will lead to any relief on costs soon. “I think Trump has a hard nut to crack to bring all this stuff down,” she said. ...

Do the two Rachels at the Wall Street Journal who write this sob story about the middle class "buckling" realize that about half the country makes $45k or less? What about those people? Well, they don't read the Journal anyway, right?

You have to be in the 64th percentile to be like Teri and Bill, the high end of the middle 33-66%. 

 

Save the greater sage grouse from the worshippers of electricity, the renewable energy phonies, AI data centers, NV Energy, Berkshire Hathaway, Warren Buffett, the Bureau of Land Management, and of course Donald Trump

This poor little bird has an awful lot of enemies.

 

The AI boom comes to America's loneliest place

Oliver Roeder, Financial Times Magazine 

 “In Nevada, it’s very hard to piss everyone off, and this has been about the closest example.”

The energy inflation rate year over year under Trump I averaged 1.2%, under Trump II in September 2025 it is 2.8% or 133% higher

It averaged nearly 10% under Joe Biden, so there's that, but prices are still rising off that!

 

I hope you didn't leave the lights on at home, because the electricity will cost you 38% more in September 2025 than it did under Trump I

 Electricity averaged $0.136 per kWh under Trump I.

 

And that stop for gasoline on the way to work is going to cost you 34% more than under Trump I

 Gasoline used to average $2.49 per gallon under Trump I.

Under Trump II in September 2025 it's $3.34, 34% more. 

 

 

 

Don't forget to turn down the thermostat before you leave for work after your 66% more expensive Trump breakfast

 Piped utility gas used to average $1.04 per therm under Trump I.

Under Trump II it's $1.61 in September 2025, 55% more.

 

 

One nutball era takes over where one left off: Trump's big ugly bill had no money in it to replenish the Strategic Oil Reserve gutted by Joe Biden, at a time when WTI is half the price it was in 2022

 US seeks 1 million barrels of oil for Strategic Petroleum Reserve

... The previous administration of former President Joe Biden sold record amounts of oil from the SPR, including a 180-million-barrel sale after Russia, one of the world's top oil producers, invaded Ukraine in 2022. The reserve, which has about a 700-million-barrel capacity, is now holding nearly 409 million barrels. ...

 

Trump's tax and spending bill included about $171 million for the SPR oil purchases and maintenance, much less than the $1.3 billion that had originally been in the legislation. Buying more oil for the SPR will likely require the passage of new legislation. ...

 

Buying a million barrels is a drop in the bucket. Maintenance costs are eating up most of the $171 million. Joe Biden reduced the reserve by 244 million barrels during his tenure.

 

A reserve of 600 million barrels would run the country for only 30 days in a real emergency, max. 

 

We are governed by imbeciles, who think we currently have about 50 national emergencies. 

 

 

 

In May Trump & Co were crowing that gasoline was below $2, now 6 months later they are crowing it is below $3 lol

 

Delusional Trump promised 9-cent electricity within 12 months and doubled electricity generating capacity "quickly" in Detroit in October 2024

We haven't seen 9-cent electricity since 2003 and aren't likely to ever again, and doubling generating capacity will take well into the 2040s, twenty more years. 

Piped utility gas costs 15% more on average than when he spoke, while the average price of gasoline is basically flat but falling.

We'll get updated data this week maybe, since despite the shutdown the administration is pledging to report the consumer price index figures.

But the main point is, Trump has no idea what he's talking about. 

 

When the energy rubber hits the supply road, it's paved with coal

AI power demand is forcing a coal revival. Jefferies sees more than 30% rally in one such stock

King Coal 2024, for more than 50 years, sixth paragraph in lol, weak wind and hydro in Europe

Renewables overtake coal as world's biggest source of electricity

... Coal, a major contributor to global warming, was still the world's largest individual source of energy generation in 2024, a position it has held for more than 50 years, according to the IEA. ... in the EU, months of weak wind and hydropower performance led to a rise in coal and gas generation. ... winter wind lulls can last for weeks, requiring backup power sources that batteries alone can't provide - making the system more expensive to build and run. ...

Nissan Leaf EV comes down with a bad case of thermal runaway at the grocery store in Littleton Colorado

 

I keep hearing that gold is soaring because of continued dollar weakness lol

On the contrary, gold has risen despite continued dollar strength.

The enormous gains for gold in 2024 and 2025 are not explained by a round trip in the dollar index from 120 to 129 and back again. That's just a little side show in the bigger picture of dollar strength.

 

 

The dollar index has made steady progress out of the pit of despair at 85.46 in July 2011 under Barack Obama, the enemy of fossil fuels, to a place of relative strength today averaging above 120 in 2022 and 2023, 123 in 2024, and 125 in the first half of 2025.

Speaking of a weak dollar in this context is laughable.

Maybe the dollar is so strong again because the United States has become a net exporter of oil. The 1975 ban on oil exports was lifted in December 2015. Net imports of oil went negative for the first time since 1950 in 2020.

Gold is probably so strong in part because of increasing debt globally, which like rising prosperity helps drive demand for it as a hedge. Extreme poverty gripped half the world in 1950 but by 2020 it afflicts just 10%. Meanwhile gold production has nearly tripled over the period.

As a percentage of global GDP, global debt has gone from just above 100% of global GDP in 1980 to a whopping 235% of global GDP in 2024.

 

 

 

 

Biden gutted the Strategic Petroleum Reserve by 200k barrels over 12 months in 2022, Trump's been in office 8 months and has done BUPKIS to refill it

 Spot WTI averaged nearly $95/barrel in 2022.

In 1H2025 it averaged $68.

The price fell again in August to an average just under $65, too.

Trump could be refilling at cheap prices, but he's too busy with nonsense.

 

Redesigned Ford Expedition, an ICE vehicle which gets 18/19 combined mpg, sees best sales in 21 years

Ford’s redesigned three-row Expedition SUV is seeing explosive growth.

The Detroit automaker reported Wednesday that it sold 8,724 Expeditions in August, up 53.7% from the same time last year and marking its best sales in 21 years. It’s sold 61,022 of the vehicles so far this year, a 13.1% increase from the same period in 2024. ...

More. 

GM to make new EV production cuts in Tennessee and Kansas City according to Reuters

 

... GM will stop production of two electric Cadillac SUVs at its assembly plant in Spring Hill, Tennessee, during the month of December, according to a person familiar with the matter and communications to GM employees viewed by Reuters.

The plant produces the midsize Cadillac Lyriq — a relative hit and one of GM’s top-selling EVs — and the Vistiq, a larger electric SUV.

GM also plans to significantly curtail production of those vehicles during the first five months of next year by temporarily laying off one of its two shifts of workers, according to the sources. The company will additionally shutter the plants for one week in October and November.

The automaker is also planning to indefinitely delay the start of a second shift at an assembly plant near Kansas City, which is still slated to begin production of the Chevy Bolt EV later this year, the person familiar with the matter said. ...

More. 

Biden killed off the Keystone XL pipeline, costing Alberta over $1 billion, construction workers over $2 billion, and the economy billion$ more, so Trump killing off wind is simply to be expected