The North American finished vehicle supply chain must be ready for significant change amidst rising uncertainty, ready to adapt capacity, equipment, transport and network plans in line with customer demand and regulations, whilst maintaining the highest efficiency, delivery performance and quality as possible. Join this must-attend opening session of Finished Vehicle Logistics North America to hear from leading carmakers and logistics providers how the region’s vehicle supply chain can enable the industry’s transformation and support carmakers’ transition to electric vehicles, digitalisation, sustainable transport, more agile and, ultimately, leaner operations. Learn about the strategic investments and changes that OEMs and providers are ready to make – from new types of equipment to handle vehicles, to new port and yard facilities.

In a landscape marked by evolving demand and vehicle specifications, autohauler operators and carriers must rethink strategies for efficiency and staying competitive. This session explores overcoming driver shortages, optimising load factors and load sharing to create a leaner, more effective road freight network. Leaders from carmakers and logistics providers will uncover best practices for ETA accuracy, seamless dealer handoffs, visibility enhancements, and investments in equipment and lower-emission technology to meet network and sustainability requirements amid shifting vehicle sizes and weights.

In a dynamic market, flexible vehicle allocation and real-time visibility are critical for a competitive vehicle supply chain. Discover how OEMs, carriers, and logistics providers are leveraging digital strategies, including telematics, GPS tracking, AI, and data analytics, to create more adaptable and accurate networks. Learn how advanced software is improving capacity forecasting, optimizing rerouting in transit, and increasing transparency and capacity management across vehicle compounds and handoff points. Join this session and hear from automotive logistics and IT leaders to understand how embracing digitalisation can help control costs and enhance responsiveness and flexibility in the end-to-end vehicle supply chain.

Uncertainty reigns supreme, as supply chain disruptions, rising quality holds, changing consumer preference and the industry’s trajectory towards electrification and decarbonised supply chains create new complexity. These pressures are compounded by evolving trade tariffs, incentive programs, and increasingly diverse vehicle portfolios. For carmakers, this translates into heightened exposure to inefficiencies, rising costs, and regulatory hurdles.

This session will explore how advanced network engineering is becoming a critical tool for manufacturers to navigate this complexity. Hear from logistics leaders and network planning specialists to learn how optimising volume planning, scheduling, and routing can provide tighter cost control, improved compliance, and enhanced responsiveness to market demands. Industry experts will share the network engineering tools, designs and strategies for more accurate and flexible network management, addressing the growing challenges of vehicle production and distribution, while ensuring dynamic and resilient networks fit for the future.

In this fast-paced interactive session, teams will tackle a variety of key focus areas within quality management and damage limitation, including data analytics, safety and equipment, claims processing, rework and repair processes, partnerships, dealer hand offs and more, to identify common issues, practical solutions and industry action points to take forward.As the automotive industry accelerates toward sustainability, manufacturers and logistics providers are balancing short-term emission reductions with long-term decarbonization strategies. This session will explore how OEMs and their partners are integrating low-emission transport solutions, investing in green logistics infrastructure, and leveraging strategic partnerships to create a high-performing, low-emission vehicle distribution network. Discover how sustainable practices are becoming a competitive advantage, ensuring compliance with North American environmental regulations while enhancing cost efficiency and operational excellence across the finished vehicle supply chain.

As rail freight becomes increasingly crucial to vehicle logistics, OEMs and their partners must adapt to new challenges and opportunities. Explore how the re-introduction of precision scheduled railroading, new partnerships and rail connections from Canada to Mexico, and investment railcar equipment and technology are reshaping the network. With the automotive industry requiring greener, leaner and more flexible logistics solutions, learn how class 1 railroad providers and rail equipment specialists are working with carmakers to improve railcar availability, fulfilment rates, delivery times and enhance visibility and interoperability with other transport modes for greater control, ETA accuracy and efficiency.

In this fast-paced interactive session, teams will explore the major dark spots within the network, identify crucial gaps to illuminate, generate solutions to connect the vehicle supply chain from factory to dealer, and develop best practices for data collection, sharing and utilisation amongst carmakers, dealers, carriers and service providers.

Vehicle quality management and damage prevention is crucial not only to keep deliveries on time and customer satisfaction high, but also to prevent loss of finances and long-term damage to the brand. Quality holds and damage rates are on the rise, as manufacturers face new challenges from integrating new partners, routes and transport modes into the network, to handling electric vehicles and incorporating increasingly complex software updates, OEMs and their partners are intensifying efforts to enhance performance across the vehicle distribution network. Understand how leading carmakers and carriers are improving communications, trust and transparency, driving best practices and using data analytics to predict, prevent and address quality issues and speed up reaction and repair times.

Ocean shipping and port handling of finished vehicles has seen major change in North America, as manufacturers and shipping lines adapt to changing trade flows, network bottlenecks and growing pressure on emissions and costs. But effective, sustainable and competitive shipping play a pivotal role in enabling trade, reducing dwell times, increasing throughput, and enhancing visibility. This session explores investment in sustainable pure-car-and-truck vessels (PCTCs), developing port capacity and infrastructure, including for EV handling, alternative transport methods like cars in containers, and the opportunity for new facilities and services in North American vehicle shipping. Leaders from carmakers, port operators, and carriers will discuss strategies for integrating new vessel capacity, streamlining deep sea and short sea operations, and driving greener, smarter finished vehicle logistics across global waters.

Despite uncertainty on the pace of transition, carmakers continue to invest and plan long-term for fully electric product portfolios, with the vehicle distribution network under to pressure not just to adapt to new challenges and complexities, but also contribute to EV affordability through hyper-efficiency and competitiveness. Paradoxically, heavier and larger EVs risk reductions in load factors and haulaway capacity, and require investment in charging and storage infrastructure, skills and transport equipment. In this session, EV carmakers, handlers and distributors will explore the unique challenges of transporting battery-powered vehicles through the domestic and internal network, from standardising state of charge to battery degradation and low ground clearance, and discuss how finished vehicle logistics can enable the industry’s transformation to an electric future.

Mexico’s vehicle production and distribution landscape is evolving fast, with new players increasing vehicle imports and some carmakers with existing footprints shifting production from the US to Mexico plants, adding to the strain on the region’s vehicle logistics network and increasing demand for cross-border trucking, rail and short-sea services between Mexico, the US and Canada. Our panel of regional logistics leaders, carriers and international and cross-border logistics experts will explore how strategic partnerships, multi-modal transport, and cross-border compounds are mitigating rail and port congestion, enhancing flexibility, and ensuring smoother distribution to U.S. and Canadian dealerships. Gain insights into the latest efforts to optimize capacity, improve operational consistency, and manage the complexities of northbound vehicle flows in and from Mexico.

Over the past years, vehicle logistics has proved it’s resiliency, overcoming extreme shortages in capacity, managing swings in vehicle inventory and flexibly adapting transport modes. Now, North American vehicle logistics and distribution must be ready to disrupt and re-invent processes, equipment, technology and strategies to get ahead of wide-scale transformation and keep pace with shifting customer demand and regulations. Now is the time for carmakers and vehicle logistics providers to challenge one another, break new boundaries and drive innovation, and create a vehicle supply chain that is ready for change and delivers a competitive advantage. Don’t miss this final session to hear from the industry’s key leaders, disruptors and innovators, as they challenge the status quo and re-imagine finished vehicle logistics.