A recent study by cars.com lists the top ten American made cars. That's a bit different than cars with the most raw materials, parts and sub-assemblies originating in the United States. For the latter measure they cite Traffic Safety Administration figures which show that there are 37 car models that contain more than 75% American content, 28 of them by Detroit manufacturers. That sounds like a good number until you compare it to last year's figure. Last year, Detroit accounted for 35 car models that were at least three quarters American out of a total of 47. That's a pretty hefty drop.
In fact, says cars.com, the 2012 Ford Focus will be only 40% American. That's despite the fact that Ford's VP of North American Manufacturing said in a recent interview that he had "in-sourced" 2000 jobs in the last year, bringing 2000 manufacturing jobs back to America. One of Ford's other entries, though, scores pretty well with 85% American content. That's the Ford Explorer.
The top ten American-made cars is, however, not only factors in American content, but also sales volumes. In other words if you sold 1 Explorer at 85% American content that would get beat by a car with only 80% American content that sold substantially more units. In theory, that higher number of cars produced and sold in the United States means more American jobs. By that measure, the top American made cars don't come from Detroit at all.
In fact, the Toyota Camry is the #1 most American car according to the cars.com study. With 80% American content, the Camry is assembled in Kentucky and Indiana, even though Toyota's headquarters is in Japan. Surely #2 is a Detroit model, right? Wrong. The second most American car is the Honda Accord, also made with 80% American content and assembled in Ohio and Alabama.
The Big Three finally make the list with the third most American car, the Chevy Malibu which comes out of Kansas. The Ford Explorer that we've already mentioned, rings in as the fourth most American car.
In all, the traditional American automakers account for exactly half of the top ten most American cars, while Japanese car companies account for the other five.
By the way, the U.S. government just sold the rest of the Chrysler stock that it acquired as part of the auto industry bailout package in 2008 and 2009. The buyer was Fiat, an Italian car-maker that now owns 53.5% of Chrysler, according to the Detroit Free Press. That's a controlling interest and makes the entire company less than half American.
So, by all means, buy American, but it isn't as easy to figure out just which cars or even which car companies are American as it used to be.