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SAE's 2026 Showcase: A Step Forward, But Can the US Automotive Industry Regain Global Leadership?


14 Jan 2026

I thank the Society of Automotive Engineers for organising an international showcase at the start of 2026 ahead of their scheduled meeting with policy makers in Washington DC between January 20-22. 

The showcase was successful in highlighting SAE’s initiatives in Sustainable Mobility ,Connectivity, Digital Transformation ,Automated & Autonomous Systems, Power & Propulsion ,Advanced Materials and Workforce Development. The Automotive industry is  cross-disciplinary that relies on several distinct domains working together to build a vehicle. SAE has done well to unite them in a single platform. 

The challenges that the automotive industry faces today are much different from the challenges it faced when SAE was instituted more than a 100 years ago. 
Sustainability is a key issue. Henry Ford ,an illustrious member of SAE,understood this and tried to manufacture a hemp based car. That did not work out well due to a combination of materials limitations and incentives. But I think there is another issue. Innovation in materials does not easily translate to its application in a product. Today we have the capability to build nanocellulose (and other cellulose composites) based sheets that are quite tough and can be used in a car body but the tooling to make functional structures such as doors and handles are still non-existent. For any new material it will take decades to catch up. 

The problem with fuels is much the same. Automotive engines ,like jet engines, are not designed for low volumetric energy density fuels like hydrogen. NH3 is a bit better but toxic. Which is why at the moment electric vehicles offer the only reasonable solution. But it comes with its own set of problems — namely added complex dependence on materials and development of a vast electrical infrastructure as well as mass manufacturing capability across a set of  devices like capacitors,diodes and resistors that require precision engineering.

Workforce development is something that needs attention. But for students to choose automotive as a career the local environment needs to support it and financially incentivise it. In the space industry there seems to be a problem of attracting talent, if automotive does not provide enough opportunities it may stagnate too. 

Today globalisation is in full effect and supply chains have become deeply entangled.  The policy makers in Washington want the US automotive industry to succeed. However the incentives created during previous administrations lost the advantage and allowed Japanese and to some extent South Korean and Chinese automakers to capture US markets. Can SAE position US industries to take lead again or will it remain a neutral ,standard making education focussed non profit organisation? It will be interesting to see where things go from here. 

Last year I participated in a panel discussion on the future of mobility at IIT Delhi from the perspective of investors. I asserted that even though EV Tech is well proven the technical debt associated with manufacturing EV is high. Unless the entire product chain can be localised EV will remain highly dependent on trade secrets. Which is why it is essential to pursue alternative clean mobility solutions even if they are less energy efficient as compared to electric propulsion. This is because material challenges impose a more severe constraint than energy. 

There is far greater untapped energy that is highly distributed as compared to materials that are often concentrated in a few locations and rely on complex extraction techniques. Simpler systems have the potential to create economies of scale, distributed manufacturing ecosystems and replicable industries that are simply not possible with EV. 

The situation is exacerbated when you add chips,comms and AI into the mix. Nations are not sovereign in either of these technologies yet and their combination is a guaranteed entanglement in a web of complex ,guarded technologies. 

However market forces are unlikely to allow a period of calm where technologies can be homegrown. The unrelenting competition makes it impossible to sustain new discovery processes forcing policy makers to adapt a gametheory/realpolitik driven solution. Incentives are provided to manufacturers to move some of their manufacturing locally with hopes that this will prop up local industries that would be able to compete at a global scale. However to attain a real tangible lead it is important to look beyond the pressing needs of the present and seek to obtain advantage in the future.  

For Automotives consumer vehicles provide no such opportunity. However, endless hope exists in materials,fuel and engine innovation in marine vehicles. This is where new tech must be tested. 

Do you care about international relations? Would you like to be a part of a non profit that seeks to foster international collaboration? Partner with us & use your skills in Science/Engineering/Research/Team Building/Consulting/Administration/Law/PR/Comms/Business to shape the future. Let's do this.

ABOUT bhū 

bhū is a self funded non profit organisation dedicated to advancement of science and promotion of international relations.
We aim to promote international harmony through creation of specific councils and bodies for regulating and overseeing international issues and accelerate developments in nanotechnology, material science ,electrostatics, fluids, plasma science,thermodynamics and advanced manufacturing.

Let us work together

https://akshatjiwannotes.blogspot.com/p/bhu.html

Akshat Jiwan Sharma

Materials science/International relations/Partnerships 

Mobile/whatsapp:+919654119771
 
email:getellobed@gmail.com
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