Report

These are the most American-made cars, trucks and SUVs of 2023

Analysis from Cars.com shows it's not just about the badge

Jun 21st 2023 at 8:00AM

If you want to buy the most American-made cars, trucks or SUVs, you might want to look further west than the Motor City. According to Cars.com, only one American brand made it into the top 10 of its 2023 American-Made Index, and it ain’t from Ford, GM or Stellantis. The newly released list puts Tesla at the top of the pack, followed by German and Japanese brands.

So what makes a car American-made? By Cars.com’s standards, it’s a mixture of five ingredients: country of origin for available transmissions and engines, U.S. manufacturing workforce, final assembly location and percentage of U.S. and Canadian parts. Their rules, not ours. But with that in mind, the top 10 American-made cars for 2023 are as follows, with "cars" being used as a generic term of light-passenger vehicles, including trucks, SUVs and literal cars:

  1. Tesla Model Y
  2. Tesla Model 3
  3. Tesla Model X
  4. Tesla Model S
  5. Honda Passport
  6. Volkswagen ID.4
  7. Honda Odyssey
  8. Acura MDX
  9. Honda Ridgeline
  10. Acura RDX

Looking at the remainder of the full list of 100 vehicles, the first from the Big Three is the Lincoln Corsair in 16th place. The most American-made GM product is the Chevy Corvette, in 19th place. The first Stellantis entry is in spot 21 with the Dodge Durango.

You'll also notice that the most American-made truck is the Honda Ridgeline. Oh sweet irony. Not shown there is the most American-made full-size truck is the Toyota Tundra at No. 12. The next most American-made is the Ram 1500 at No. 28. 

Cars.com also broke down the automakers with the largest share of U.S. light-duty sales from domestic assembly:

  • Tesla: 100%
  • Ford: 77.5%
  • Honda: 73.1%
  • Stellantis: 70.1%
  • Subaru: 58.5%
  • GM: 54.0%
  • Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi Alliance: 49.1%
  • Toyota: 48.9%
  • Mercedes-Benz: 41.5%
  • Hyundai: 40.2%
  • BMW: 36.3%
  • Volkswagen: 21.1%
  • Mazda: 14.7%
  • Geely: 4.0%

There are some other interesting findings from Cars.com’s analysis. GM represents more vehicles on the American-Made Index than any other automaker, making up 18%. Broken down by individual brands, Toyota has the most, at 11% of the Index. Michigan builds more vehicles on the list than any other state, though none of the top 20 on the Index are assembled in the Mitten. 59% of vehicles on the list are SUVs, up from 52% in 2022 and 43% in 2021. Hybrids represent 12%, while 8% are battery-electric and only 2% plug-in hybrids.

Related video:

Share This Photo X