Automotive

Expertise

Driving transformation through automotive and mobility strategy consulting

The automotive and mobility industry are transforming with remarkable speed: Electrification. Automation. Artificial intelligence. Connectivity. Shared mobility. Innovation has revolutionized the automotive industry and brings opportunity for those who find creative ways to restructure their businesses, reshape their products, reimagine their services, and refine their operations. Our advisors deliver leading-edge insight and pragmatic automotive consulting solutions to help you succeed in the new world of future mobility.

Our automotive practice serves clients across the global value chain, including OEMs, suppliers, technology companies, investors, and dealerships. As leaders in accounting, tax, and automotive consulting services, we bring decades of industry experience backed up by proprietary market forecasts and benchmarking data. Our automotive industry consultants deliver leading-edge market, financial, operational, and strategic intelligence you won’t find anywhere else. We’re also highly regarded as thought leaders within the industry, with our experts regularly featured at key automotive conferences and quoted in industry media.

Navigate automotive industry transformation with confidence

Manufacturing leaders rely on our automotive consulting solutions backed by an integrated team of accounting, assurance, tax, consulting, and wealth management experts to achieve their goals in a dynamic industry. Here’s how we can help you navigate today’s top challenges.

Advance your electrification strategy

No matter what stage your company is in the electric vehicle transition, our mobility experts can help you chart your unique course. We can help assess your current product portfolio, identify strategies to scale — from M&A to adopting new technologies — optimize your automotive supply chain, leverage IT and analytics for business growth, and identify EV financing opportunities.

Leverage technology to embrace transformation

Our technology strategists will help you leverage technology, automation, and AI on the plant floor to achieve greater operational efficiency and open doors to new and incremental revenue. From assessing where you stand to creating your best course of action, we’ll help you level up.

Maximize return on investments with adaptive costing

Do you have transparent insights into key cost drivers across the automotive value chain and how they impact your margins? From product proliferation, process complexity, and automation to volume variability and varying logistics requirements, we’ll develop a tailored, practical cost and margin model to help you drive profitable decisions.

Offset ICE-to-EV transition costs with financing opportunities

Is your organization taking advantage of key capital financing opportunities to support the ICE-to-EV transition? Our automotive manufacturing consultants offer strategic guidance into federal tax credits, loans, grants, automotive M&A deals, in addition to traditional funding mechanisms to offset investment costs.

Optimize supply chain & operations

Automotive supply chain challenges are bound to arise in a dynamic industry, and you need to be prepared to guard yourself against potential exposures. We’ll help your organization navigate evolving trade and tariff policy, mitigate risk, and build a flexible and responsive supply chain tailored to the distinct needs of your business.

Strengthen supplier-customer relationships

As supply chains complexify and face disruption, partnerships with strong end-to-end communication allow customers and suppliers to better navigate market turbulence. We can help you identify your stakeholders’ needs and how to drive long-lasting mutual benefits through strong commercial relationships.

Discover strategies to manage trade & tariff impacts

See how we’ll help

Solutions

The speed of transformation has made it critical to partner with expert automotive consultants and advisors to help you navigate change. Let us help you with:

Upcoming Events & Webinars

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Thursday, Aug. 7, 2025

Buy- and sell-side transaction considerations for state and local tax

State and local taxes are often overlooked during a transaction, creating risk for buyers and sellers. Join our webinar to learn how these tax rules affect transactions and how to potentially mitigate tax risk on the buy and sell side.

Webinar / 1 hour watch

Wednesday, Sept. 24, 2025

Taking it home: Strategic Section 1202 exit planning

Explore advanced Section 1202 strategies to optimize tax savings through smart exit planning, including rollovers, gifting, timing, and Section 1045 integration. Join our specialists in this webinar to hear all the details.

Webinar / 1 hour watch

Topics

Insights

More Insights

Close up photo of an EV car charging station and a green SUV car

Financing EV capital projects: Inflation Reduction Act tax credits, grants, & loans

Article / 10 min read

Car salesman talking to a couple at a car dealership.

Cybersecurity for auto dealers: Beware third-party risk

Article / 4 min read

Automotive factory worker assembling an electrical vehicle.

Automotive supplier relations: A critical component of the EV transition

Article / 5 min read

Business professional learning about ESG.

Auto suppliers: Are you prioritizing ESG? Here’s why you should — and 5 steps to start

Article / 6 min read

100% bonus depreciation returns with the One, Big, Beautiful Bill

Article / 3 min read

The One, Big, Beautiful Bill: Key insights for manufacturers

Article / 14 min read

Return to top of section

Empowering the EV future: Financing strategies for auto suppliers. Join us to explore the diverse funding opportunities available to advance your transition toward sustainability.

View On-Demand

Case Studies

SEE ALL CASE STUDIES

October 15, 2021

Operations assessment for targeted growth

Manufacturer improves efficiencies by more than 10 percent of operating cost and sees increased production capacity.

Case Study / 1 min read

North American Lighting discussed at meeting

October 01, 2018

North American Lighting replaces multiple ERP systems with Plex Manufacturing Cloud

North American Lighting (NAL), the largest independently owned Tier 1 automotive lighting supplier, replaces multiple legacy, on-premise ERP systems and achieves seamless integration across advanced manufacturing systems and facilities with the Plex Smart Manufacturing platform.

Case Study / 2 min read

March 26, 2024

Cost and margin intelligence solutions for automotive supplier

Automotive supplier improves costing information leading to confidence in product decisions and reduced lead time.

Case Study / 1 min read

Client Experience

An experienced automotive advisor at your side

Headquartered in the Motor City with nearly 100 years of experience, our experts know what drives success in the automotive industry. In this era of radical change, our broad range of customized services will meet you wherever you are in your transformation journey and wherever you operate around the globe.

Our clients say we’re knowledgeable, attentive, and more flexible than other automotive consulting firms. They know we’ll work shoulder-to-shoulder with them as a member of the team and be equally invested in their success. In the words of our automotive consulting practice leader Mark Barrott, “Our clients appreciate the depth of our industry experience, our understanding of what’s most important to transform and succeed, and our ability to help build out a pragmatic plan with realistic, implementable, strategies.”

Ashish Sadhu

Former Vice President, Marelli

Over the past decade, Plante Moran has distinguished itself from other firms by consistently surpassing expectations. They are more than just a service provider; they are co-creation partners. Plante Moran goes beyond offering standard solutions and instead crafts customized solutions specifically designed for each company. They do this by providing valuable intelligence, guidance, market research, and always keeping the voice of the customer in mind, even when working under tight deadlines.

Our Team

MEET OUR TEAM

Mark Barrott

Partner

David Pesci

Partner

Automotive

Expertise

Navigate automotive industry transformation with confidence

Advance your electrification strategy

Leverage technology to embrace transformation

Maximize return on investments with adaptive costing

Offset ICE-to-EV transition costs with financing opportunities

Optimize supply chain & operations

Strengthen supplier-customer relationships

Solutions

Tax planning and consulting

Tax credits and incentives

Audit and assurance

Mobility strategy consulting

Tariffs and trade

Supply chain optimization

Operations improvement

Technology consulting

ERP consulting

Data analytics

Cost and margin intelligence

Cybersecurity consulting

M&A and transaction advisory

Environmental, social, and corporate governance (ESG)

Risk management

Real estate advisors