This could be as good as it gets for the US car market

The US auto market has been on a roll over the past five years, reaching a whopping 17.5 million cars sold last year.

Much of the growth has been fueled by pent up demand after years of economic instability, easy access to credit and more recently, cheap gas.

However, sales data from March show that the growth in the industry is beginning to subside.

In March, analysts expected sales to reach an annualized pace of 17.3 million cars, but as the numbers rolled in Friday it looked like the industry would fall short of that.

Ford, GM, Fiat Chrysler, and Toyota all came up short of projections.

Last week at the 2016 New York auto show, Business Insider sat down with several leading auto executives to get their view on the state of the US market this year and whether sales could climb from here to 18 million units or more. Here's what they had to say: