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Guess who swept top of Cars.com's American-Made Index? Not who you think, Detroit

Breana Noble and Summer Ballentine, The Detroit News on

Published in Business News

Tesla Inc. swept the top four slots of Cars.com's 2025 American-Made Index, and Jeep parent Stellantis NV and General Motors Co. contributed just three vehicles — with Ford Motor Co. completely absent from the top 20.

Publication of the list from the automotive online marketplace comes amid scrutiny by the Trump administration of the automotive industry's trend toward offshoring in recent decades and that vehicles built in the United States still have large percentages of vehicle content coming from other places. President Donald Trump has said tariffs he's imposed on imported vehicles and certain imported vehicle parts will increase U.S. production and create high-paying manufacturing jobs, though vehicle prices are on the rise.

The list ranks vehicles of sufficient volume that have final assembly in the United States based on where their powertrains originate, their U.S. and Canadian content since federal law doesn't require automakers to report only-U.S. content, their automaker's U.S. manufacturing workforce and other factors. This year's list had 99 vehicles qualify, with the Tesla Model 3 sedan ranking No. 1.

"The Model 3 is a little bit of a surprise to me, actually, because last year, of the four qualifying Teslas that made the index, it was fourth," said Patrick Masterson, the index's lead researcher. "The domestic parts content percentage of Model 3 on the whole was much higher this year: 75%."

Certain variants a year ago had 35% or 40%, Masterson said. The Model Y SUV, S sedan and X SUV and the Jeep Gladiator midsize truck rounded out the top five. The Jeep Wrangler SUV finished at No. 13, and the Chevrolet Colorado midsize truck placed at No. 19. Vehicles from Honda Motor Co. Ltd. including the Acura brand, Volkswagen AG, Kia Corp. and Toyota Motor Corp. fill in the rest of the top 20.

Stellantis declined to comment on the results. The automaker earlier this year revised ads saying their vehicles are "assembled" in the United States instead of "built" to comply better with Federal Trade Commission regulations over the use of the phrase “made in America."

Although it advertised its "commitment to America" over the past couple of months, Ford's highest vehicle on the list was the F-150 Lightning electric truck at No. 22. During Monday night's NBA playoffs, the Dearborn automaker aired its second "From America, For America" campaign ad, criticizing its crosstown rival by stating, "If they were like us, they would have said no to the taxpayer bailout and added thousands of American jobs."

"Ford is America’s number one automaker and buying a Ford vehicle supports American jobs," spokesperson Dan Barbossa said in a statement. "We’ve added approximately 13,000 jobs in the U.S. since 2008. We employ more hourly autoworkers than anyone else in the U.S. and support more than 170,000 dealership jobs nationwide.

"We assemble more vehicles in the U.S. and export more than any other automaker. And 80% of the vehicles we sell in the U.S. are assembled here. Ford has invested $50 billion in U.S. vehicle production since 2020, and continuing our legacy of doing the right thing for our customers for more than 120 years."

GM, which imports more vehicles into the United States than any other automaker, had 15 models on the list, the most of any automaker, though that number is down a quarter from 2020. Last week, the Detroit automaker announced a $4 billion investment into three U.S. sites to move production from Mexico.

"We're growing our market share in both ICE segments and EVs with vehicles that customers love," spokesperson Kevin Kelly said in a statement. "We’ve been committed to American manufacturing and are expanding production in the U.S."

Foreign automakers, however, increasingly make up the list, accounting for 67% this year. Toyota had 14. Honda and Ford each had 13. Stellantis was fifth with eight. Alabama produces more vehicles on the list than any other state at 17, followed by Michigan with 15.

"It always surprises consumers that there are a bunch of foreign automakers on the list," Masterson said. "But that's one of the reasons we do this index, because not everyone's aware that what the badge is on the hood doesn't necessarily correlate with where it's made."

Toyota's Corolla Cross Hybrid sedan had the biggest rise on the list to 18 from 66 after movement of engine and transmission production to the United States. Toyota's RAV4 Hybrid saw the largest decrease to 99 from 65 because of U.S. and Canadian parts content falling to 25% from 67%. The number of EVs on the list more than doubled from last year to 11 from five. The Tesla Cybertruck didn't qualify for the list.

Cars.com's list only looked at vehicles built in the United States. Some foreign-built vehicles, however, still could have U.S. content rivaling vehicles on the latter half of the list, Masterson said.

The fact that the American Automobile Labeling Act reports show U.S. and Canadian content of vehicles built by Japanese, Korean and German automakers as higher than that of many U.S.-based brands has been a line of defense for the Trump administration in imposing import taxes of 25% on vehicles and parts from most countries.

"The Big Three, so-called American companies — GM, Ford, Stellantis — they’re not really American companies," Peter Navarro, senior counselor to President Donald Trump on trade and manufacturing, told CNN in March. "They have less American content in their cars than some of the other companies that are operating in America, like Honda."

 

Historically, consumers don’t remember where vehicles are built, said Stephanie Brinley, associate director of S&P Global Inc.'s AutoIntelligence, but this kind of research at least puts the information out there.

A survey conducted by Cars.com found tariffs had accelerated 52% of consumers' timeline to buy a vehicle. Asked if they would pay more for an American-made vehicle, 51% of consumers said they would. Even 5% said they would pay 50% more, said David Greene, Cars.com's principal industry analyst.

"I don't think anyone is going to pay 50% more," he said, "but this is survey data, and it really is tracking sentiment. And certainly that does track that consumers are willing to support U.S. jobs and the U.S. economy."

Since auto tariffs took effect, Ford has run its "From America, For America" campaign offering discounts to nearly all customers previously reserved for employees. Over the past approximately two months, it's gained nearly a 25% market share, said Eddie Stivers, Ford National Dealer council chair who has five Ford stores in Alabama, Georgia and Iowa.

"If that’s not the American public voting and expressing their feelings with their wallet," he said, "I don’t know what it is."

GM's U.S. sales increased 15% in the first quarter, while Stellantis' were down 12%. Ford's fell 1.3% in the first three months of the year, but they were up 6.1% through May. Also through May, Toyota Motor Corp.'s U.S. sales were up 5%, Honda Motor Co. Ltd.'s rose 8.2%, Hyundai Motor Co.'s increased 12% and Volvo Group's finished up 8.4%.

For John Luciano, owner of Street Volkswagen in Amarillo, Texas, the subject of a vehicle being "American-made" probably comes up in about 5% of conversations with customers. The store didn't see a large surge of customers concerned about tariffs, though some vehicles just aren't being imported now.

“People used to be very loyal” to a brand, Luciano said. “Now they’re loyal to their payment and what they can afford. That’s the difference. If the payment is right, I think you’re going to look past where it’s made.”

Since January, U.S. automakers on aggregate gained 1.5% of their home country’s market share, according to auto information website Edmunds.com Inc.

“I’m sure there’s a subset of customers that are politically motivated” to buy American, said Joseph Yoon, Edmunds consumer insight analyst, “but that’s always the case.

“But from our experience, those types of customers tend to be outliers,” he continued. “What most customers really like is pricing.”

The average transaction price for a new vehicle in May was $48,799, according to Kelley Blue Book. The average vehicle that's made in the United States is around $53,000, according to Cars.com. Meanwhile, the average price of a vehicle from Mexico is about $41,500, up around $1,400 since the start of the year. Ford increased the prices on its Mexican-built vehicles by as much as $2,000.

"It looks like we're headed for price inflation based on current policies," Greene said.

Edmunds' Yoon said buyers who prioritize American-made goods tend to be wealthy enough to afford to lose money by trading in for a more expensive domestic vehicle or to buy more than one vehicle.

“Where domestic automakers have won a little bit in the past couple of months is probably for people that were already in the market or close to being in the market," Yoon said. “It’s not like these guys kept the employee pricing a secret.”


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