The Chevy Corvette is commonly known as “America’s sports car,” flying the red-white-and-blue pride with a big V8 and crossed flag badge on the nose. However, according to one recent study, the Vette is only the fifth-most American-made car in 2021.
Per a recent study from Cars.com, the Chevy Corvette slots in below the fourth-ranked Jeep Cherokee and above the sixth-ranked Honda Ridgeline. The top three most American-made models in the list include the Tesla Model Y in third, the Ford Mustang in second, and the Tesla Model 3 in first.
The Cars.com list is based on five primary criteria, including assembly location, parts content, engine origins, transmission origins, and U.S. manufacturing workforce. The study looked at a total of 344 vehicles, only 90 of which made the index. Although Cars.com does not outline its weighting and calculation methodology, each of these five criteria “play a significant role” in determining a model’s rank in the list. One of the most important qualifiers is the final assembly location, although some of the cars ranked have split manufacturing in several different countries.
As a reminder, the 2021 Chevy Corvette is assembled at the General Motors facility in Bowling Green, Kentucky. Bowling Green Assembly, located at 600 Corvette Drive, first opened in 1981, and has served as the exclusive producer of the Chevy Corvette for the four decades since. The facility employs roughly 1,000 workers.
The Cars.com study also sources data from the American Automobile Labeling Act (AALA), which requires automakers to report the overall percentage of U.S. and Canadian content represented by their vehicles. Although the AALA combines U.S. and Canadian parts into the same pool, Cars.com compensates by factoring in engine and transmission origins into vehicle scoring.
As the study points out, determining which models are the most American-made is particularly important in light of production disruptions incurred by the COVID-19 pandemic, the Suez Canal blockage in March, and the ongoing global microchip shortage.
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Comments
You missed some information.
Of the 90 qualifying US Made cars, GM had the most cars in the list! GM had 19, followed by Honda with 13, Toyota with 12, and Ford with 11.
Nebula
Honda & Toyota are disqualified because they don’t design their vehicles in North America.
Designing a new model from scratch could run well into the billions depending on the number of model variants.
Don’t tell that to the good people in Princeton, IN where approximately 4500 Hoosiers and Illini are employed making cars with 80% NA content. Nothing wrong with that!
NeverEV
They would make more money working for the big 3.
They woul make more money by organizing a union and collective bargaining.
You want higher wages? Then organize the South and free the low wage part of the USA!
I worked in a union for over 30 years. UFCW Local 21 in Seattle WA. We had to join because Washington State is a closed shop state. It was pathetic. You couldn’t give a raise to hard working employees with good attitudes because “it’s not in the contract”. You couldn’t fire lazy, entitled, bad attitude employees for the same lame reason. It took an act of God to get rid of dead weight.. Communism at its worst. The union officials were the lowest sort of vermin. Saturated top to bottom with their Marxist ideology. Thoroughly obsessed with race and class warfare. Constantly badmouthing the employer who signed our paycheck. We had an 81 day strike in 1989 at the urging of the union. The union officials never missed a paycheck. We never voted for the lowlife politicians they endorsed. I enjoyed the job and the people I worked with but the union people were out of touch losers living in the 1930’s.
I am sure you asked your boss to cut your wage by half.
Submissive people like you are being loved by the boss class.
I was the boss you weak commie loser. Typical union class envy attitude. Jealous of the boss, knowing you don’t have what it takes to advance your position. Guys like you need a union because you are sheep who would be devoured in the real world. You were the parasite we couldn’t fire because your Marxist overlords protected you.
Exactly engineering is done in their home market. I do not understand why people get a hard-on with american made Japanese cars. The engineering is done in their homeland. Anyone can put together a product and follow directions “blueprints.” Humans aren’t dumb and can be trained to do anything. If Toyota and Honda were actually American then one could tout more about their “american” made car. Just like the Chinese put together products that were engineered by Americans.
In my opinion I am not interested in a car’s origin, but rather does it interest me to the point of purchasing. I’d prefer to buy American, but only if the quality and style is appealing to me. If not, it’s game on.
From the looks of most gm woke vehicles, they aren’t designed in the USA either.
Dan
GM’s crossover sales are on fire. Maybe they were designed on the sun.
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Out of the top 10, only three are from “The Big Three” (aka Ford, Chrysler, and gm) with each Detroit maker posting precisely one product. Honda had four and Tesla had two. Toyota rounds out the top-ten with one product.
Even moving down to the top 20, gm still only has three products and the second and third are the Colorado/Canyon twins which are essentially the same product so I wouldn’t consider gm to be worthy of many accolades. These days buying a Honda is perhaps a more patriotic choice than a Chevy. Baseball, hot dogs, apple pie, and Honda….. They go together in the good ole’ USA is the new refrain.
Isn’t Chrysler also a foreign owned company?
Chrysler is just a brand, not a company, and one of 14 active brands of the international company named Stellantis. Stellantis shares are traded at the NYSE (New York Stock Exchange), Euronext Paris, and the Borsa de Milano.
Stellantis was born on January 16 by the cross-border merger of PSA and FCA (Fiat Chrysler Automobiles). Chairman of Stellantis is New York born John Elkann, grandson of Gianni Agnelli, who was in turn grandson of Giovanni Agnelli, the founder of FIAT. CEO of Stellantis is portuguese born Carlos Tavares.
Chrysler and the other 3 USAnian brands of Stellantis (Jeep, Dodge and RAM Trucks) have a long history and are well rooted with factories, engineering and design centers in USA.
Honda? Their newer vehicles have engines with crankcases filling up with unvurned gasoline. Customers have their Honda hauled to the dealer and Honda simply tells the techs to drain the gasoline out, fill it back up with oil, and send it on its way. They refused to admit the obvious, gasoline is a terrible lubricant and all the engine internals probably didn’t appreciate that. Reminds me of a decade ago when Hondas needed brake jobs more often than new tires and their engine blocks were developing huge cracks in critical areas. At least their motorcycles aren’t trash yet.
Of the top 20 products with the most US content, Honda produces seven, or 35 percent of them. The tally for gm is three, or 15 percent.
The criteria should include which country the profits go in the end . When the twin towers were destroyed GM donated millions . Toyota donated nothing .
Toyota is Japanese why would they donate? Not every country or people believe in spending their own money on other countries. (i.e. US foreign Aid projects) So one can’t roast them for not donating.
Toyota makes $ billions on US consumers. Why wouldn’t they donate? But I think you are missing the point. When a company is based in the US they are going to care far more about the US than a foreign based company.
The Japanese consumer understands how important it is to support companies based in Japan, while too many Americans actively campaign against the “home team”. One of the best examples was in the 90’s when Toyota build the Geo Prism for gm. The car was identical to the Toyota Corolla built at the same Toyota plant. Yet Consumers report readers consistently rated the Corolla in the top level of quality and the Prism in the bottom level of quality. They were to same car. Motor Trend at the time dubbed it the “Toyota effect”. Suggesting that since they bought the Toyota because of its great quality reputation, if they complained about its quality it made them look stupid in their buying decision. MT said it was the same situation if you ask a person driving a small car, they will almost always overstate the mileage they get. Because if they don’t get great mileage on a small car, they look dumb for buying it.
Anyway, not including where the profits end up is a huge miss in this study.
Remember NUMMI, the joint venture of GM with Toyota. Tesla cars are produced in a part of the former NUMMI factory.
GM has been hell bent on getting rid of the USA for years. The Toy Lette was proof.
If a corporate “person” is claiming to build American products, perhaps they should include American interests.
gm still doesn’t pay any federal income tax.
Their employees and all the supporting companies pay hundreds of millions in federal income taxes.
so what. their temporary assembly worker making 16/hr pays more in federal income tax than gm itself. anything is greater than zero.
and at the same time they are lobbying hard for corporate welfare to subsidize their ev’s.
what a joke.
Let’s not forget that engineering and design is also done in the US and Profit is kept in the US. As far as the EV’s their competitors get the government subsidies, why shouldn’t the playing field be level? Subdues for all or none.
How many US employees are left?
I now proudly own a Tesla Model 3 Long Range, Dual Motor. Took delivery of it Yesterday! Proud to support American jobs!
Thank you SonicFan.
Me too!
It IS a good feeling to buy and support American jobs, as well as drive and own the most technologically advanced vehicle on the road today.
@Mark R
I agree. Cannot get a better vehicle for the money.
@SonicFan
That’s great. Welcome to the Future but it is actually happening now HAHA
Hope you are enjoying the Tech and the Speed. Have fun!!!
I believe like 20% of the lithium in Tesla batteries are supplied by one Chinese company. I’m sure the working conditions there are great. Obviously those lithium salt water flats and strip mines are great for the environment, too. How thoughtful and progressive of you!
How ‘thoughtful’ of you to actually commit yourself to creating such a comment, that also is a direct result of lacking critical information, and contains intentional ignorance.
The information in my comment is 100% accurate.
You wrote “I believe”, and the guesswork on the working conditions is just … guesswork.
much more lithium comes from Bolivia and other Andean countries.
And Australia… But that fact still stands that nearly a quarter of the lithium comes from a Chinese company.
@h4cksaw: can you point to a document which can be quoted as a reliable source for this?
Typical lazy, uniformed BEV enthusiast. Just google Ganfeng Lithium and Tesla… It’s not hard…
But I’ll just do the math for you… Tesla uses what like 20,000-30,000 tonnes of lithium a year for USA vehicles? And they just signed a deal with Sichuan Yahua Industrial Group over 5 years estimated at 63,000-88,000 tonnes, or 12,600-17,600 tonnes per annum. Those numbers are from a Reuters article… Can you do the rest of the math?
Yeah, found this on Yicai Global by binging:
»
(Yicai Global) Sept. 21 [2019]– In its second deal of the week, Ganfeng Lithium, one of the world’s biggest makers of lithium products, and its GFL International unit have agreed to supply Tesla with 20 percent of the Chinese firm’s annual output of lithium hydroxide.
Elon Musk’s California-based electric startup will oblige its battery suppliers to purchase a fifth of the lithium hydroxide made by the Chinese firm until the end of 2020, Gangfeng said in a statement today. The deal will help the Jiangxi province-based company cement a long-term stable partnership with Tesla, it added. The price will be decided later.
«
Plz note that this article is nearly 3 years old, and according to it, the contract runs to the year 2020, which was last year.
But thanks for the push to look up more — while it is well known that the largest reserves of Lithium in the soil are said to be in Bolivia (followed by Argentina, Chile, USA, Australia, China, …) there are no numbers given in the Wikipedia articles on the production of Bolivia. And I believe, the largest part also of the actual Litium production does come from Bolivia.
But I think that the most part of the Lithium bought by Tesla in China is for their production inside China.
Hard to get real figures in a world of company secrets…
I realize the methodology accounts for labor and other factors but I’m shocked that the Mustang came in 2nd place. According to my window sticker the Mustang barely qualifies as an American car with 50.1% US content. My 6 speed transmission is made in China for example.
It’s almost impossible to say what is an American car then if the most american of them all are still chock full of Chinese parts.
The whole ranking is jingoist nonsense.
Bottom line: No matter where the manufacturer’s home country is, you want the plants making parts and assembling vehicles here in the states. Which MO helps Americans more….TOYOTA building cars and trucks in IN, KY & TX or GM building vehicles in Mexico and China? So, even though they aren’t American companies and profits flow overseas, we are immensely better off with the foreigners’ investments in construction, taxes and employment on our shores.
Toyota just shipped all Tacoma manufacturing to Mexico and moved production of axles from the US to Thailand. Their other truck, the Tundra, a flimsy old rust rot nightmare left over from the mid 2000’s. Their vehicle lineup is awful. Buzzy oil burning 4 bangers with awful CVT’s or the V6 mated to an 8-speed lemon of a transmission that Tiyota tried to weasel out of doing anything about the failures. But then again, Toyota says it’s normal for their engines to burn 1 quart of oil every 1,200 miles, so obviously they dont care about quality these days.
Good for you! Did you notice, all of a sudden all the supposed patriotic, buy-american yellling ,petrolheads all got cowered silently? Turns out, Tesla is the most murican car and EVs are the American way!
Seen a few on the road need to see more
The Silverado is #77. How does that work where some of them are made in Mexico? I just bought a 2021 Sierra Crew Cab 1500 and a 2021 Silverado Regular Cab 1500 and they both came out of Mexico.
The drive train of those cars is probably made in USA and exported to Mecico. And who knows how many other parts.
When the “percentage of U.S. and Canadian content” is based on value, the drive train (engine and transmission) make up a large part of that.
I agree where the final profits go should be considered. With all the money the foreign companies make off selling cars in the US of course they can make better cars..because they have more money to pay the better engineers for designing a d they can use better parts too
Why did Americans donate $730 million to wealthy Japan? They donated this after the Tsunami… So to answer a question why should have Japan donated after the twin towers fell? Maybe it would just be an act of good will or maybe we are tired of underpaid workers building a product that does not help the US economy expect for the workforce… Or maybe it’s because America is tired of bailing out every country in the world since WWII ended! I will buy GM because regardless of where it’s made because my money comes back to the USA.
How is the “percentage of U.S. and Canadian content” being calculated?
Percentage of number of parts? Wheight, volume or value? How is ‘value’ established, especially for in-company deliveries?
Sheesh, how many exterior pics do ya need?!? Lol
Thank you for sharing indeed great looking !