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DETROIT — The only consistency has been inconsistency for the U.S. automotive industry during the first half of this decade — a trend that’s expected to continue amid challenging market conditions in 2026.
The U.S. auto sector — a crucial driver of the economy estimated around 4.8% of America’s gross domestic product — has endured rolling crises since the Covid-19 pandemic shuttered U.S. assembly plants in early 2020. The global health crisis was followed by yearslong supply chain issues, semiconductor chip shortages, political whipsawing, tariffs and other challenges for all-electric and autonomous vehicles.
Automakers have been surprisingly resilient during the challenges, but those issues are now combining with more traditional industry problems of affordability and slowing consumer demand. That’s all creating a more challenging environment for automakers in 2026.
“We’ve got to plan for the worst and hope for the best,” Hyundai North America CEO Randy Parker told CNBC during an interview. “That’s the situation that we’re in right now.”
