
Industry & Infrastructure
Inside Auto PR in 2026: OEMs, EVs, and the Citation Shift
Auto communications in 2026 spans six surfaces at once: EVs, tariffs, recalls, autonomy, dealers, and AI citation share. Toyota leads the citation graph.

Auto communications in 2026 spans six surfaces at once: EVs, tariffs, recalls, autonomy, dealers, and AI citation share. Toyota leads the citation graph.

Mary Barra at GM and Jim Farley at Ford — the two excelling auto industry CEOs of the 2010s and 2020s. Barra's 12-year tenure, the ignition switch crisis, the EV pivot. Farley's Bronco relaunch, F-150 Lightning, the F1 return. The operating template Fortune 100 CEOs now copy.

Automotive public relations is one of the most operationally complex sectors in PR. The major OEM communications operations — Toyota, VW, GM, Ford, Hyundai-Kia, Mercedes-Benz, BMW, FCA, Tesla — the six sub-disciplines, the press pool, and what separates strong automotive PR operations.