Welcome to the Daily 5 report for Thursday, Dec. 18.
There is no shortage of challenges and angst in the auto supply business. As the broader auto industry wrestles with costs, figuring out what consumers really want and finding the winning formula for the future of mobility, suppliers have felt the brunt of this difficult transition.
In North America and Europe alone, suppliers have cut more than 60,000 jobs in 2025 as companies grappled with the financial fallout from the EV production pullback and mounting tariff costs.
That's the tally from the new Supplier Distress Tracker created by Automotive News, which monitors for layoff notices, insolvencies and bankruptcies via WARN notice filings, court documents, media reports and data provided by CLEPA, the European auto supplier association.
And suppliers are preparing for a difficult 2026.
Some of the challenges they are bracing for include falling orders from automakers, a flood of Chinese components and high interest costs, which are squeezing profits. At the same time, suppliers are being forced to invest more in new technologies.
Automakers operating in the U.S. are currently freezing investment decisions as they process the Trump administration's push to reverse electrification targets and force more localization by increasing tariffs, Francisco Riberas, executive chairman of Spanish metal parts supplier Gestamp, told Automotive News Europe.
Gestamp's global footprint and broad customer base give Riberas a unique view of the state of the automotive industry around the world, and his verdict is that in the U.S., the turmoil around the changes is too great to encourage quick decision-making.
"The level of uncertainty for our customers is very high," he said, without naming specific automakers. "These are huge investments." Riberas also talked with Automotive News Europe Correspondent Nick Gibbs about Europe's bumpy transition to electrification and how the supplier is coping with a decline in its China business.
These serious challenges are not stopping supplier innovation. At January's CES, the gigantic annual tech expo in Las Vegas, they will showcase systems that help autonomous driving systems better understand their surroundings, humanoid robots that show off dexterity in tackling boring and dirty jobs, and voice assistants that offer more relaxed conversations with better information.
But woven through all the cutting-edge technology, neural networks and automatic lane-changing features is an old problem: How can automakers and consumers afford this stuff?
A lot of questions, and a lot to ponder. Automotive News will keep reporting as answers emerge.
That's all for now. Have a great rest of your day. If you want to view this story on your browser, click here.
— Omari Gardner, managing editor, operations
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