If it makes a difference to you where your next car was made, a little research on which vehicles are really “most American” may surprise you. With little consumer information available on the overall domesticity of any particular model, and the global interoperability of most auto makers, it’s tough for consumers to tell just where their cars come from, and in reality, they don’t really come from one place anymore. A brand new report from Cars.com, a leading auto data company, reveals more about what cars really deserve to carry the slogan “Made in America” and the winner this year, for the third time in a row, is the Toyota Camry.
The Toyota Camry is a best-selling part of lot inventory across America, but it doesn’t necessarily follow for most drivers that the Camry is an “all-American” car, but news from Cars.com shows that the majority of parts for this vehicle are made right here in the U.S., in plants in Kentucky and Indiana. To rank cars by American-ness, Cars.com uses the percentage of American parts in the vehicle, as well as sales volume in the U.S. That leaves Toyota in the top spot, as well as in two other spots on the top ten list, with GM tying up the tally with three vehicles of its own, including the Chevrolet Malibu at #3. The Honda Accord stands at #2, showing that the other “Japanese giant” also invests heavily in U.S. production.
All of this just goes to show that auto production is different than it used to be. In order to effectively rank the cars, researchers had to utilize specific laws about labeling American-made parts and really crunch the numbers on just what goes into each consumer vehicle, regardless of its nameplate. Many of us already knew that foreign auto makers have production plants in the states, but this report brings a new level of detail to the process of figuring out where production is sourced for all of the various car models that we tend to associate with their countries of origin. Cars.com is a subsidiary of a company with the involvement of media giants Gannet and Washington Post; this established source helps to shed some light on what you’re really buying when you go to the dealership.
