(NEW YORK) — This weekend, consumers and auto enthusiasts will poke, prod and pepper brand specialists with questions about the latest vehicles on display at the Javits Center.

The annual New York International Auto Show, which officially opened to the public on Friday, is smaller and more condensed than previous years. There are still plenty of vehicles to check out up close, such as the 2026 Hyundai Palisade, Kia K4 Hatchback and EV4, plus Genesis, Toyota, Subaru and Volkswagen introduced new vehicles and concepts.

Of course, one overarching theme looms large: Will these new vehicles be subject to the Trump’s administration’s 25% industry tariff? Consumers went out in force last month to scoop up available cars, trucks and SUVs before prices inched higher, helping the industry report record sales. In fact, nearly 1.6 million vehicle units were purchased, marking a month-over-month increase of 29.6% and a year-over-year increase of 10.3%, according to Cox Automotive data.

What will happen to new vehicle prices this summer, when temporary pricing pauses announced by automakers disappear? And as uncertainty dominates, how will automakers — from mainstream to ultra luxe — respond?

ABC News spoke to various auto executives and industry watchers about the future of the industry. The conversations below have been edited for clarity and space.

Sean Gilpin, chief marketing officer, Hyundai Motor America

Hyundai is a very customer-centric brand, a people-centric brand. We just launched a campaign reminding customers that we’re not increasing MSRPs for the next 60 days (ending June 2). What we saw in the some of data and surveys is that customers don’t know how a tariff works but they know things will get more expensive potentially, so we wanted to get the message out there.

The June 2 date could be extended. The best medicine for our business is to keep selling cars. We think this message is resonating with customers. We’ve seen a big uptick in our shopping activity, in customers who are new to the brand and visiting the site for the first time. Dealer traffic is up.

We have a plant in Alabama. The Tucson, our best-selling vehicle, is built there. The Santa Fe is also built in the Alabama plant. We had a grand opening of our Metaplant near Savannah, Georgia, two weeks ago, and 300,000 vehicles will come off the line in phase one. Phase two will bring capacity to 500,000 vehicles. We’re continuing to invest here and grow in terms of our footprint. The U.S. is the No. 1 market for Hyundai. We also recently announced a commitment to build a steel plant in Louisiana.

Tony Quiroga, editor-in-chief, Car and Driver

The tariffs make everything a sort of unknown. I’ve been telling anyone who’s in the market in the next year to start shopping now. Inexpensive cars are going to get more expensive because so many are built outside of the U.S. Nissan builds the Kicks, Versa and Sentra in Mexico. Chevy builds the Trax in South Korea, which would be subject to be a big tariff. A lot people could be priced out of the market. If you’re in that market, you should definitely be considering buying a car now.

The tariff situation is unsettling and weird and everybody is just sort of wondering what’s going to happen and hoping for the best I think.

Vinay Shahani, senior vice president of U.S. marketing and sales, Nissan Americas

The market is healthy right now. There’s a lot of shopping, and a lot of cross-shopping, that’s happening. We feel really good about the activity out there.

We have plenty of on-ground inventory that’s protected from tariffs today. We’re very fortunate as a company that we have a very strong industrial footprint here in the U.S. Between Tennessee and Mississippi we produce a lot of vehicles that we sell here in the U.S. There are six models built in the U.S. between Nissan and Infiniti.

The Rogue is currently built at the Smyrna Assembly Plant in Tennessee as well as in Japan. Now we’re saying we’re going to increase the production of the Rogue in the U.S because it makes sense to do that and we can dial up production to deliver more U.S.-built Rogues. We’re also looking at subsequent new vehicles that we’re going to launch and saying, how can we optimize our footprint and bring as much as we can to the U.S.? It’s already happening — we’re moving production of the Rogue from Japan. The supply and manufacturing teams are already all over it.

Starting at the end of March, we started to see increased activity and it’s carried through for the month of April. We have basically said we’re holding our pricing between April and May. Then we will evaluate the situation after June 2. In this dynamic environment, where things are changing constantly, you can’t plan too far out.

Steven Center, chief operating officer, Kia America

Tariffs are a whole different kettle of fish as they say. Product cycles are long — they’re five, six, seven years or longer. Automakers have long planning horizons and you always want to have a shorter supply line as possible. We learned that during the pandemic. And you always want to build things closer to where you’re selling them.

To build a factory takes years of planning and execution. It’s very difficult to find a location for an auto plant. You need a lot of space, you need suppliers nearby, you need rail heads to bring in the materials. Most importantly you need a labor pool. And this country is in a state of zero unemployment. So where are you going to find people?

Erin Keating, executive analyst, Cox Automotive

Automakers have been fairly mute on tariffs — there haven’t been any big reveals on how they’re going to manage the cost. My advice: if you are in the market, and have been looking to buy a car, go to the dealer and buy one. If you’re just worried cars will get more expensive, wait it out. I wouldn’t rush ahead to make a decision — things could change.

There will be a grand redistribution of market share over the next few months. Whoever can capitalize on the frenzy of the consumer will win the day, at least in the second quarter. We’ve seen increased marketing from automakers and increased shopping behavior on Autotrader and Kelley Blue Book. The lending environment is looser now than in the past. There is still pent-up demand in the market.

We saw a big sales jump in March and will see another in April. Sales though could peter out in May. Automakers are trying to hold pricing right now … though prices will increase to some degree across the board. At the dealer level, floor planning is not cheap. You don’t want to keep inventory on the lot for a long time. If inventory goes quickly, you will have to replenish.

Ford and Honda have relatively low exposure to the tariffs. Toyota also has a lot of strength in the U.S. market in terms of manufacturing.

Vehicle parts are the bigger component of the tariff challenge. It’s so difficult to move production to the U.S. Brands are impacted separately; it really comes down to specific models. Vehicles built in the U.S. will get hit with tariffs because of the componentry. The 25% steel and aluminum tariffs are also hitting automakers.

I stress to consumers that it’s good to be informed of what’s happening. There are things you can do, like vote with your wallet.

Mike Rocco, president and CEO, Bentley Americas

The U.S. is the largest market in the world for Bentley. In the luxury space your world revolves around building an order bank — making sure you have customers in the system. We’ve told our retailers to communicate to their clients that we will price protect all retail orders that are in the system. If you have a car coming — don’t worry about it, you’re protected. We also announced that in the month of April, any new orders that went into the system would be protected, not just the ones prior to the tariff.

We’re looking at pricing on a month-to-month basis. There’s a lot of fluidity and things are changing. We haven’t had any [vehicle order] cancellations. Our No. 1 priority is to protect our clients and to protect our retailers.

I was recently in Palm Beach and Naples, Florida, talking to 70-80 clients. The feeling I got from customers I spoke to was that they’d have to pay whatever the tariff is … everyone recognized that the tariff would eventually be passed on to the customer.

Andrea Soria, general manager, Maserati North America

We live day by day. We keep monitoring. We are currently not shipping cars from Italy. It’s a very fluid situation. Every day you have different news. If nothing changes we will need to make some decision. We cannot absorb the tariffs entirely. We hope there will be some negotiation coming, some solution, something that will be a little bit more reasonable.

I think everyone in the industry is trying to adjust the sales. My colleagues in Italy ask me every day [about the tariffs]. I say, I wish I had a better answer. Everyone is waiting right now. We protected all the orders that were in the system until April 4. We haven’t seen anyone walking away [from an order] so far.

Tyson Jominy, vice president of data & analytics, J.D. Power

The auto industry is probably uniquely positioned to absorb the tariffs because sourcing time frames in the industry are so long. It takes so long to pivot to new ideas.

It’s a completely global industry. Even companies that assemble the majority of their vehicles in the U.S. have parts coming in from overseas. Therefore, no one really is exempt from tariffs. We’ll likely see some vehicles go away and automakers could cut back on marketing and reduce R&D costs to reserve cash. There’s really little they can do in the short term … and they’re holding cards close to their chest. Everyone is super tight-lipped about their plans.

We saw the industry really take off at the end of March, when the tariffs kicked in the last week. March was one of the strongest months we’ve seen in four or five years. Some automakers may even set sales records in the first half of the year. We expect a very strong Q2 but could see volume losses in Q4 — we know we can’t continue at this pace.

The automakers locking in prices have higher inventory levels. An automaker would normally be skewered for having 100 days of supply on the ground, but that’s a huge asset right now and buys you time. The tariffs may go away and you can see what your competitors are doing.

Our analysis says vehicles will have an 11% additional cost on average, or just shy of $5,000 per unit. But only 5% of the cost will be passed on to the consumer on average, or $2,300 per unit. You can’t raise the price of a Hyundai Sonata by $7,000 for example — that would be the equivalent of pulling out of the segment. Automakers may see negative margins on certain vehicles.

Models like the Porsche 911, Mercedes-Benz G-Class and Range Rover have true pricing power — customers won’t care [about a price increase].

I tell consumers not to rush out and buy a car. Ultimately making the right decision at a slightly more expensive purchase price would be the better decision for the long term.

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