North American OEMs improve supplier relations despite industry volatility

For the first time in the 26-year history of Plante Moran’s Working Relations Index (WRI), all six major North American OEMs have improved their supplier relations sores, with suppliers reporting that the carmakers are becoming more communicative, accessible and collaborative. 

Despite major global headwinds including tariffs, EV-related write-offs and continued supply chain disruption, Toyota, Honda, GM, Nissan, Ford and Stellantis all showed gains in their supplier relations in the 2026 WRI study. Ford had the largest year-on-year improvement, up 32 points to 223, and Toyota retained its lead amongst the OEMs with a score of 409, surpassing 400 for the first time since 2007.

Honda kept its second place status and improved by 13 points to 360, climbing into the study’s ‘good to very good’ category, followed by GM which increased eight points to its highest ever score of 318. Nissan rose six points to fourth place at 255, trailed by Ford, and Stellantis remained at the bottom of the pack, but gained 22 points to reach 163.

Dr Angela Johnson, principal and supplier relations analytics lead at Plante Moran, told Automotive Logistics that the results were unexpected given the scale of disruption facing the industry. “It truly could have gone the other way, we had to triple check when we saw they all came out positive,” Johnson said.

“[With the tariffs] there was a massive amount of turmoil especially when you couple it with EV write offs, and I was pleasantly surprised to see acknowledgment of the OEMs trying to be proactive,” she added.

Suppliers reward communication and accessibility

One of the clearest findings from this year’s study was a shift in supplier sentiment around communication and responsiveness. Johnson said suppliers increasingly recognised OEM efforts to engage proactively, even when they could not fully meet supplier demands on cost recovery or commercial terms.

“There was less frustration, less finger pointing,” she said. “Suppliers were acknowledging the efforts that OEMs were putting in to be proactive, to try to keep in front of problems, to be as fair and equitable as they could.”

The study collected more than 10,000 supplier comments this year, compared with around 2,800 last year, revealing a marked change in tone across the supply base.

Johnson said suppliers frequently cited practical relationship-building behaviours such as taking meetings, answering calls, listening to concerns and communicating more transparently during periods of uncertainty.

“Even if suppliers didn’t experience their ideal outcome, they credited the OEMs for taking their meetings, listening and acting,” Johnson said.

Tariffs and EV cost recovery remain major pressure points

While supplier sentiment improved overall, tariffs and EV-related costs remained significant sources of tension. Johnson said suppliers reported highly varied experiences across all OEMs when it came to tariff recovery support, highlighting the complexity of the issue.

“Each OEM had suppliers saying they were absolutely excellent at it, and others saying they were horrible,” she said. “That tells you how complex tariffs are and how many factors influence outcomes.”

Toyota and Honda received the strongest supplier feedback around fairness and transparency during tariff negotiations, reflecting their longstanding reputations for collaborative supplier engagement.

“Toyota is known for being very partnership oriented, highly collaborative,” Johnson said. “Honda, always known as being great to work with, but high integrity. They're honest, they're transparent, and both of them got very high marks in how they navigated tariffs.” She added that Honda could have improved further, but their suppliers were seeing some impacts from the OEM’s EV strategy, which took away consistency.

GM was recognised for responding quickly and being receptive to supplier concerns, though they were tempered by some pushback in the company’s aggressive supply chain resiliency initiatives, which suppliers said required substantial resources to implement.

Ford and Stellantis were also credited for becoming more proactive and accessible, particularly through increased supplier engagement and leadership visibility.

Johnson highlighted Ford’s turnaround as particularly notable. “What I told them last year is that it wasn’t one thing that was driving them down, it was like death by a thousand cuts,” she said, adding that this year “they put on a thousand band-aids”.

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She credited Ford’s chief supply chain officer Liz Door and her team with driving more supplier engagement, addressing organisational disconnects and implementing a two-way supplier scorecard to improve transparency. Door was appointed to the role in June 2023 with the clear objective to improve relations across the supply chain, alongside improving quality, reducing costs, and leveraging product connectivity and digitalisation.

“Liz started with how she was spending her time and how much she was getting out there in the supply base, participating in supplier forums, and she drove that behaviour through her whole team,” Johnson said. Since last year’s index, Ford implemented a two-way scorecard to help improve transparency and openness with their suppliers.

Deep-rooted cultural differences still shape supplier trust

The 2026 study also introduced a new analysis of the top 50 North American suppliers, revealing stark differences in how suppliers perceive Detroit OEMs compared with Japanese automakers.

The largest suppliers rated Toyota, Honda and Nissan above their overall averages, while rating GM, Ford and Stellantis below average, particularly on trust, communication and profit opportunity.

Johnson said those differences reflect decades of organisational history and cultural memory within the industry.

“You have very old relationships in automotive,” she said. “The Detroit industry began as very adversarial, and it’s an uphill battle to get past that.”

She compared Detroit OEM-supplier relationships to a long marriage shaped by years of conflict, whereas Japanese OEMs historically built supplier partnerships around trust and mutual respect. “Organisational memory is very long,” Johnson noted. “Those longstanding relationships take time and persistence to overcome.”

The ‘Six Cs’ driving supplier relationship performance

Plante Moran identified six behaviours, referred to as the “Six Cs”, that increasingly distinguish stronger OEM-supplier relationships through commercial fairness, consistency, clear expectations, communication, continuity and collaboration.

Johnson said OEMs are increasingly focusing on the aspects of supplier relations they can directly control, particularly communication and operational responsiveness.

“The commercial fairness and helping suppliers navigate uncertainty with the most efficiency goes far,” she said.

The study suggests that, amid ongoing permacrisis conditions across the automotive sector, suppliers are increasingly rewarding collaborative behaviour over purely transactional approaches.

Johnson believes the industry may be entering a more mutually dependent phase of OEM-supplier relations.

“Working together is the best way to face permacrisis challenges, innovate and grow,” she said.