The Automotive Packaging Challenges Shaping 2026: Insights from the Automotive Packaging Summit

Nick Riedl (Video Editor & Creative Lead)

The Automotive Packaging Summit is an annual event held in Greenville, SC, and sponsored by The Packaging School!

This conference brings together original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), automotive part suppliers, and packaging professionals to share knowledge and solve problems. In this Learning of the Month, we are going to hear from a few of these leaders and the challenges they see facing the industry in 2026.

Daniel Castañeda | Sales Representative at PakFab

"So, this year has been one of the most challenging years we have had in a long time, mainly because of two things. One is the EV hype. It didn't happen as people expected. So, they are realigning the launches. And also the tariffs had come into play. So, for example, we have plants in Canada, plants in Mexico, and plants in the US.

So, right now we are trying to figure out what's the best option for our customers because we need to play out with the tariffs. So, it's an added step that we need to consider when doing products with our customers."

Mike Pagel | Senior Consultant at HazMat Safety Consulting

"The biggest challenge I see working with the packaging professionals is, being somebody that used to work for the agency that writes these rules, they can be complicated. They can allow for a lot of area of interpretation, a lot of gray area.

For some people, (that) kind of scares them off because they're being overly conservative. We don't want to get in trouble.

But for other folks, myself included on the consulting side, gray area sometimes is a good thing for us. And so, there are ways to design around what the regulations allow, what they don't allow, and then live in some of that gray space as well.

One, you can work through some of that gray area. And two, even if you wanted to do something not allowed by the regulations in terms of packaging, you can still do that as long as we go through a process to get a DOT special permit, which is something we do for our clients as well.

So, I think there is sometimes a little bit of rigidity within the packaging manufacturers. And, I think pushing them to be a little bit outside of their horizon, think outside the box, is something that I try to advocate."

Dan Belbey | Head of Packaging Development at BMW Manufacturing

"A challenge I see a lot, José deals with a lot, is repeatability of tolerances, really, at the end of the day. We have some incredibly tight tolerances with robotic interface rack concepts, and I think the onus is placed on the packaging concept to find some way to surmount those challenges when rather we have other systems—camera systems, for instance—that can adapt more, rather than have a static fixed point in an X, Y, Z location in space where the rack always has to be.

So, adaptability of systems, cameras being specifically one of the things I think would help."

José Parra | Packaging Specialist at BMW Manufacturing BMW Manufacturing

"Correct. Same thing. Tolerances are critical.

And we learn that because not only at BMW (we) load or unload the parts automatically, but also the supplier needs to load the parts automatically. And sometimes it's two different robots, let's say, that put the part there, and they need to be precise for both options here."

Nick Riedl (Video Editor & Creative Lead)

Challenges like these and more will be addressed at AutoPack Summit 2026.

Learn more about the summit here.