On Wednesday, the Senate Commerce Committee did something we rarely see anymore. Every member, from both parties, voted to advance the same bill.
The Connected Vehicle Security Act of 2026, introduced by Sens. Bernie Moreno (R-OH) and Elissa Slotkin (D-MN), now heads to the full Senate. I want to explain why that vote deserved to be unanimous, and why the Senate should finish what the committee started.
The United States has been here before. Over the past several decades, we watched manufacturing move overseas. Auto plants closed. The suppliers that fed them went with them, and the communities built around that work never fully recovered. An industrial ecosystem that took generations to build came apart in far less time than it took to create.
We are at a similar turning point now, except the contest has moved. Modern vehicles are no longer defined primarily by steel, engines, or horsepower. They are defined by software, semiconductors, sensors, and the data systems that connect a car to everything around it. Whoever controls that technology will control the future of the global automotive industry.
The numbers make the case on their own. A modern vehicle runs on roughly 100 million lines of code, and many electric vehicles exceed 300 million. That is more than seven times the code in a Boeing 787. Software and electronics account for roughly 30% of a vehicle’s value today and are projected to represent more than half by 2030. The global market for software-defined vehicles is expected to grow to $1.6 trillion from roughly $475 billion today.
Meanwhile, China has become the world’s largest vehicle exporter, shipping more than 8 million vehicles globally last year after years of heavy government investment. Its ambitions go well beyond manufacturing. China is positioning itself to dominate the software and connected systems that will power tomorrow’s vehicles.
The security concerns are real. Connected vehicles continuously collect data, communicate with outside networks, and receive remote software updates. When those systems are designed or controlled by a foreign adversary, they constitute both cybersecurity and supply chain vulnerabilities. The Commerce Department recognized this when it moved to restrict Chinese and Russian vehicle software and hardware. This legislation makes those protections durable, with a staged timeline that gives manufacturers certainty: software and vehicle restrictions beginning in 2027, hardware restrictions in 2030.
The economic case is just as strong. The highest-value automotive jobs of the future will not exist only on assembly lines. They will belong to the people writing vehicle software, designing chips, building telematics platforms, and securing connected systems. Those are exactly the industries the U.S. should lead, and they are exactly the industries where small and mid-sized suppliers, the businesses I spend my days advocating, either get a seat at the table or get shut out entirely.
This is also why the coalition behind this bill matters. GM, Ford, and Stellantis have all voiced support. So have auto unions. When management, labor, and a unanimous bipartisan committee all land in the same place, that is not politics. That is a country recognizing a threat while there is still time to act.
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The U.S. cannot reclaim every manufacturing job it has already lost. But we can still lead this industry to where it is headed. A companion bill is already moving in the House. The committee did its part and did it without a single dissenting vote.
Now the Senate should bring the Connected Vehicle Security Act to the floor and pass it. We have already lost too much of America’s manufacturing past. We do not have to lose the future of the auto industry, too.
Javier Palomarez is the president & CEO of the United States Hispanic Business Council (USHBC), a leading voice for small businesses in national media, whose opinions have been sought after by the world’s top media outlets, including CNN, MSNBC, NBC, FOX Network, and the BBC. He is an acclaimed spokesperson for small business and entrepreneurship, as well as a nationally recognized leader in the Hispanic community, being recognized as one of America’s most influential Hispanics for over a decade. The son of Mexican immigrants, Palomarez was raised in South Texas.