The Most American-Made Car You Can Buy

By Douglas A. McIntyre Published Aug 5, 7:00PM EDT

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The Most American-Made Car You Can Buy — © y_carfan / iStock Editorial via Getty Images

What is a truly American car? Is it a vehicle that has been a best-seller for decades like the Ford F-150 pick-up? Is it an iconic car like the Chevy Corvette? Is it a car that is used as a pace car at the Indianapolis 500? Or, is it a car that has the most parts made in America?

Cars.com has released the latest edition of its “American-Made Index,” evaluating 90 vehicles from a variety of manufacturers to determine the “most American cars.” Those vehicles at the top of the list are the leaders based on five yardsticks: assembly location, parts content, engine origins, transmission origins, and U.S. manufacturing workforce.”

The winner was the Tesla Model 3, the lower-priced model made by America’s leading electric car manufacturer. The publicly traded company, founded by serial entrepreneur Elon Musk, not only has the largest market share among electric vehicles sold in the U.S., but also the highest market capitalization among all auto manufacturers in the country at $647 billion. (Ford’s comparable figure is $61 billion, even though its revenue is several times bigger.)

Investors view Tesla as the car company of the future. Ford, by the same logic, is a car company of the past because it makes so many gas-powered cars. Ford management has set out to change that with electric models of several cars which include a new version of its top-selling F-150. (Not surprisingly, electric and hybrid vehicles are the most fuel-efficient brand new cars on the market.)

Looking at the balance of the top vehicles on the list, Cars.com experts commented: “Tesla has the No. 1 spot for the first time in the index’s 16-year history. The California electric vehicle maker’s compact sedan, the Model 3, topped the No. 2 Ford Mustang to lead the index for 2021; the Tesla Model Y, Jeep Cherokee and Chevrolet Corvette rounded out the top five models.” (It may hold two places in the top five, but you’ll be surprised where Tesla ranks in our list of the most and least dependable car brands in 2021.)

Click here to see the 20 most American-made cars you can buy.

No car from a foreign-based manufacturer made the top five list, though many of them include American-made parts and/or are built in this country. The top vehicle from non-U.S. car companies was No. 6, the Honda Ridgeline, the Japanese manufacturer’s pick-up, made in Lincoln, Alabama.

To determine the most American-made cars you can buy, 24/7 Wall St. reviewed data from Cars.com’s second annual American-Made Index which ranks all qualifying vehicles built and bought in the United States. The 2021 study ranked 90 vehicles through the same five major criteria: assembly location, parts content, engine origins, transmission origins and U.S. manufacturing workforce.

Lincoln Navigator L 2013 (CC BY-SA 2.0) by RL GNZLZ

20. Lincoln Navigator and Navigator L
> Vehicle assembly location: Louisville, Kentucky
> 2020 rank: #54 (+34)

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19. Lexus ES
> Vehicle assembly location: Georgetown, Kentucky
> 2020 rank: #28 (+9)

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18. Toyota Avalon
> Vehicle assembly location: Georgetown, Kentucky
> 2020 rank: #29 (+11)

17. Honda Accord
> Vehicle assembly location: Marysville, Ohio
> 2020 rank: #15 (-2)

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16. Jeep Grand Cherokee
> Vehicle assembly location: Detroit, Michigan
> 2020 rank: #26 (+10)

15. GMC Canyon
> Vehicle assembly location: Wentzville, Montana
> 2020 rank: #11 (-4)

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Chevrolet Colorado LT 2010 (CC BY-SA 2.0) by RL GNZLZ

14. Chevrolet Colorado
> Vehicle assembly location: Wentzville, Montana
> 2020 rank: #10 (-4)

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13. Acura TLX
> Vehicle assembly location: Marysville, Ohio
> 2020 rank: #25 (+12)

2013 Acura RDX (CC BY 2.0) by Tino Rossini

12. Acura RDX
> Vehicle assembly location: East Liberty, Ohio
> 2020 rank: #14 (+2)

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Expedition Max Gatorbacks by Truck Hardware

Expedition Max Gatorbacks (CC BY 2.0) by Truck Hardware

11. Ford Expedition and Expedition Max
> Vehicle assembly location: Louisville, Kentucky
> 2020 rank: #20 (+9)

10. Toyota Tundra
> Vehicle assembly location: San Antonio, Texas
> 2020 rank: #16 (+6)

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9. Honda Passport
> Vehicle assembly location: Lincoln, Alabama
> 2020 rank: #7 (-2)

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8. Honda Pilot
> Vehicle assembly location: Lincoln, Alabama
> 2020 rank: #13 (+5)

7. Honda, Odyssey
> Vehicle assembly location: Lincoln, Alabama
> 2020 rank: #5 (-2)

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6. Honda Ridgeline
> Vehicle assembly location: Lincoln, Alabama
> 2020 rank: #6 (-0)

5. Chevrolet Corvette
> Vehicle assembly location: Bowling Green, Kentucky
> 2020 rank: #8 (+3)

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4. Jeep Cherokee
> Vehicle assembly location: Belvidere, Illinois
> 2020 rank: #2 (-2)

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Tesla Model Y, Oakland CA IMG_... by Bill Abbott

Tesla Model Y, Oakland CA IMG_... (CC BY-SA 2.0) by Bill Abbott

3. Tesla Model Y
> Vehicle assembly location: Fremont, California
> 2020 rank: Unranked

2. Ford Mustang
> Vehicle assembly location: Flat Rock, Michigan
> 2020 rank: #34 (+32)

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1. Tesla Model 3
> Vehicle assembly location: Fremont, California
> 2020 rank: #4 (+3)

About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.