Cars rarely made headline news when I started writing about them. Now cars are a political plaything, batted back and forth in a game of policy ping-pong: electric power, gas-guzzling V8s, subsidies, no subsidies, subsidies again, bike lanes, speed cameras, job cuts, investments, high prices, higher insurance costs, tariffs and trade deals tied to goods such as submarines and canola. Don’t expect all the back and forth to slow down any time soon.
In 2026, all eyes in the auto industry will be watching to see what happens with the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), which underpins trillions of dollars in trade. Car companies have been lobbying hard for a new free-trade deal and elimination of Trump tariffs ahead of the agreement’s six-year review in July. Canadian auto workers will be hoping for a fair deal that will prevent companies from moving production out of Canada to the U.S., as Stellantis did at its Brampton, Ont., plant last year.
But that’s not the only issue auto-industry insiders have their eyes on; I spoke to several experts in and around the Canadian International AutoShow in Toronto to see what’s on their radar for 2026.
Robert Karwel, director of OEM solutions at J.D. Power in Canada, on how rising prices and economic headwinds are making it harder for young people to get into the car market:
“We are losing younger buyers (under 35) and growing older buyers (56-plus). If you think of them as slices of a pie, it’s that older demographic slice that is getting larger. This is a double-edged sword, as we want to pull people in as soon as possible in the hopes of selling them another car or two during their buying lifespan; but, admittedly, the older buyers are better situated and likely contributed to the fact that we had another 1.9-million-unit year [for new vehicle sales in Canada] and with consumer expenditure hitting a record $68-billion, up 5.5 per cent from 2024.”
Steve Flamand, chief executive officer of Hyundai Canada, shared concerns about a lack of detail in the federal government’s new auto strategy and uncertainty around the future of USMCA and the economy in general:
“There’s a lot of uncertainty when it comes to regulations, such as the move from a zero emission [vehicle sales mandate] to a greenhouse gas [tailpipe emissions regulation] that’s extremely stringent. Same thing with the tariff situation and with Chinese EVs, the famous 49,000-vehicle [import quota]. There are basically no details available about how it’s going to be executed. There’s no worse enemy to an industry than uncertainty and lack of clarity. So, we’re looking forward over the next few weeks and months to get more clarity. Similarly, with the new EV incentive the federal government’s rolled out. Obviously, we welcome this. It’s nice to help with affordability on EVs. But there are a lot of unknowns about how it’s going to be executed and evolved over time.”
Vito Paladino, president and CEO of Audi Canada, on why Audi made a huge investment to compete in Formula 1 starting this year:
“F1 is the pinnacle of motorsports competition. Look at how global it is. Programs and content like Netflix’s [Formula 1: Drive to Survive documentary series] have now really made it, for Canadians and North Americans, something that is a little bit more intimate. But you can love a brand for its cars. You can love a brand for perhaps, family memories of it. But a brand requires an identity, and so that is through technology, that is through different models, but it’s also what type of lifestyle things you do with your product. […] Racing, F1, the car itself competing, it pulls you in, and that gives a sense of a sharper personality and identity as a brand.”
Shane Peever, vice-president of sales, service and marketing at General Motors Canada, on the future of the company’s manufacturing footprint in Canada in the wake of the trade war and job cuts at the Oshawa, Ont., and Ingersoll, Ont., plants.
“GM Canada’s been here for over 100 years and plans on being here for the next 100. It’s really important to note that the action that we took at CAMI [the GM assembly plant in Ingersoll] where we built the BrightDrop, was not a shift in production to the U.S. It was the end of production of an electric van where, unfortunately, the market didn’t turn out as we had hoped. And it’s really important to note as well that we’ve made over $2.5-billion dollars of investment in the last five years in the Canadian market, and have committed to building our next generation [gas] pickup at the Oshawa facility. So we’re committed to Canadians in Canada, and will be here for the next 100 years. We’d love for the trade environment to stabilize, and we hope with the renegotiation of the USMCA or CUSMA that’ll come, but we just have to keep our sights set on the long term here. […] The government’s been great at involving the industry in those discussions, and we work very closely with them, and we’ll look forward to the resolution.”
Åsa Haglund, head of Volvo Cars Safety Centre, on the next frontier for automotive safety:
“For a long time, safety has been very focused on mitigating and surviving a crash. The ‘next frontier’ is about combining sensing and software with data, compute power and AI tools with the ultimate target to offer tailored support to understand and mitigate risks. Then, of course, these same capabilities will also increase our capability to avoid accidents or, if they still happen, offer optimized protection and post-crash care based on situation and individuals involved. This is what makes data the new safety belt in this new era.”
Hussein al Attar, director of automotive design at BMW Designworks in Los Angeles, on the move toward a faster and more holistic approach to making cars:
“We literally changed the mindset of how we develop our cars by bringing people together, literally, physically putting people in the same room. And, okay, if the aerodynamicist has a certain requirement, but the ergonomics engineer has a different requirement that might be contradictory, they’re now sitting in the same room. They can work with the designers and with the engineers together to figure out how we solve this. I mean, it just accelerates everything. […] And I think there’s a lot we can do in simplifying our design, which, you see the first step here [in the BMW iX3]. We don’t have a lot of decor parts and parts that might not be very necessary. From an environmental impact perspective, designing for disassembly, these interiors are much easier.”
Hugues Bissonnette, head of Polestar Canada, on the reintroduction of federal $5,000 consumer incentives for electric vehicles and the right way forward for public charging infrastructure:
“This incentive is great news for the industry over all, whether it affects some of our [Polestar EV] products or not. There’s a price gap, obviously, that needs to be respected, but I think the incentive just brings back the discussion in the right direction. The new federal investment in charging infrastructure as well is a great one. Should we have our own [Polestar branded charging network]? I don’t know. I tend to lean on the side of maybe infrastructure should be shared. I don’t think every OEM should necessarily have their own.”
These interviews have been edited for length and clarity.