Al Root

The the most American-made car for 2025 is...drumroll...the Tesla Model 3.

That says a lot about Tesla, but it might not tell investors what they want to know about car investing in the second Trump administration.

Cars.com released its annual American-made Index on Tuesday. It's the company's independent ranking of current model-year vehicles based on assembly location and parts content for some 400 models with adequate data disclosures.

Tesla swept the top for spots with its Model S, X, 3, and Y vehicles.

That isn't a huge surprise, but it is a comeback. Tesla swept the top four spots in 2023. In 2024, the Model Y took home the 'most American' crown. However, Tesla only had three of its four ranked models in the top ten. Its Model 3 fell to 21st after being a top-10 finisher in 2022 and 2023 and ranking first in 2021.

The reason for the Model 3 jump in 2025 is a recent redesign. Along with updating the look and features, its U.S. and Canadian parts content went to 75% in 2025 from about 50% in 2024.

Tesla builds all the cars it sells in the U.S. domestically at plants on Fremont, California, and Austin, Texas. The changing parts content most likely reflects somewhat random variation from supplier changes to optimize the new model's production instead of a conscious decision to make the list. Tesla didn't respond to a request for comment about the list.

Rounding out the 2025 Cars.com top 10 are the Jeep Gladiator, Kia EV6, Honda Ridgeline, Honda Odyssey, Honda Passport, and Volkswagen ID.4.

Investors might be tempted to use the American Made Index as a proxy for tariff exposure or to declare who is the most American. They shouldn't. While Telsa has a huge U.S. presence and low tariff exposure it only has four ranked models. And Jeep parent Stellantis imports about 45% of the cars it sells domestically from outside the U.S. Volkswagen imports about 80% of its U.S. sales.

Ford, for its part, only imports about 20% of the cars sold domestically. It also has the most hourly workers, those paid on an hourly rate rather than a salary, in the U.S. compared with GM and Stellantis.

And while Ford Motor and General Motors don't have any cars in the top 10, they have a lot of models that passed Cars.com muster. GM, with 15 models, has the most cars on the list of 99 American-made cars. Ford has 13 models, tying Honda Motor and trailing Toyota Motor by one.

It isn't always easy for investors to figure out which model is American made. The same is true in the other direction. As for not-so-American-made, Cars.com noted that the Ford Maverick and Ford Bronco Sport are assembled in Mexico. The Buick Encore GX and Buick Envista are assembled in South Korea. Cars.com didn't pick on GM and Ford. BMW sedans are mostly imported.

There is a reason for building cars outside the U.S. It's affordability. The average transaction price for a Mexican-built car is about $42,000, according to Cars.com data. The average price for a Canadian-built car is about $46,000, and for an American-built car is about $53,000.

President Trump's 25% import tariff on new cars is changing the affordability equation. Cars.com counts an average price increase of about $1,100 for Mexican-built vehicles.

Cars.com also found that almost 60% of Americans were willing to pay up to 10% more to buy American. That's good news for the industry. If they will pay more and what impact higher prices have on buying frequency are yet to be seen.

Write to Al Root at allen.root@dowjones.com

This content was created by Barron's, which is operated by Dow Jones & Co. Barron's is published independently from Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal.

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June 17, 2025 07:45 ET (11:45 GMT)

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