Meet The 10 Most American Cars of 2022

Tesla | Model Y

Pop quiz: What’s the most American car or truck on sale today? If that made you pause, don’t worry: the automotive industry’s global supply chains and international manufacturing make that a tricky question to answer.

Enter Cars.com and its “American-Made Index.” For the 17th straight year, its editorial team ranks qualifying vehicles (read: no heavy-duty pickups; no yet-to-launch models, no discontinued models, etc.) on how American-made they are.

While Cars.com won’t reveal exactly how it compiles these rankings, it does note it ranks vehicles based upon the following criteria:

• Location(s) of final assembly, or where the complete vehicle is assembled before shipment to dealers
• Percentage of U.S.- and Canadian-sourced parts in each vehicle (automakers aren’t required to break down this percentage any further on window stickers)
• Countries of origin for all available engines
• Countries of origin for available transmissions
• Automaker’s direct U.S. manufacturing workforce, factored against its U.S. production footprint.

So, what does Cars.com say are the 10 most American-made vehicles in 2022?

Tesla Model Y and Tesla Model 3

First and Second Place

Final assembly: Fremont, California; Austin, Texas (Model Y)

Motor assembly: Sparks, Nevada (Model 3)

Battery cell production: Sparks, Nevada

Tesla’s strong performance in these rankings is frequently attributed to extensive vertical integration, and the automaker’s “Gigafactory” in Nevada is a great illustration. This facility not only manufactures electric motors for the Model 3, but it also produces the individual battery cells that are then assembled into Model 3 and Model Y battery packs.

2022 Lincoln Corsair

Third Place

Final Assembly: Louisville, KY

Engine Assembly: Cleveland, OH (2.0- and 2.3-liter); Chihuahua, Mexico (2.5-liter Hybrid)

Transmission Assembly: Livonia, Michigan; Sterling Heights, Michigan (Hybrid)

The Corsair is not only the lone Ford product to crack the top ten this year, but Cars.com says it’s the first Lincoln to do so since these compilations began in 2005. The Corsair is built in Ford’s Louisville Assembly Plant, which also builds the mechanically related Ford Escape crossover. Corsair 2.0-liter and 2.3-liter EcoBoost models use engines and transmissions sourced in the Midwest. The Corsair Grand Touring’s hybrid powertrain uses a 2.5-liter four-cylinder built in Mexico, but pairs it with a hybrid transaxle built in the same Michigan plant tasked with building electric motors for the Ford F-150 Lighting.

2022 Honda Passport

Fourth Place

Final assembly: Lincoln, Alabama

Engine assembly: Lincoln, Alabama

Transmission assembly: Tallapoosa, Georgia

Honda’s American manufacturing presence has a sizable footprint in Ohio, but the best-performing Honda vehicles on this year’s list hail from southern states. Introduced in 2019, the midsize, two-row Passport is built in a factory 45 miles west of Birmingham, AL. Its sole engine option is a 3.5-liter V6 built within the same factory, which is then bolted to a nine-speed automatic transmission built at the Honda Precision Parts of Georgia facility just across the Alabama-Georgia border.

Tesla Model X and Tesla Model S

Fifth and Sixth Place

Final Assembly: Fremont, California

These models share the same California final assembly line as the Model 3 and Model Y at the top of this page, yet are much farther down the list. What’s the difference? It may come down to battery cells. While the 3 and Y use cells produced within the U.S., the Model S and Model X—the two oldest vehicles in Tesla’s portfolio—appear to still use battery cells produced in Japan.

2022 Jeep Cherokee

Seventh Place

Final Assembly: Belvedere, Illinois

Engine Assembly: Trenton, Michigan

Transmission Assembly: Tipton, Indiana

Surprisingly, the most American Jeep on this list isn’t the iconic Toledo, OH-built Wrangler (which earned a 44th-place finish). Instead, Cars.com says the honor goes to the compact Cherokee crossover, which has been assembled in Illinois since 2017. Cherokee’s 2.0-liter, turbocharged four-cylinder and 3.2-liter V6 engine options share a manufacturing plant in Michigan, while the SUV’s nine-speed automatic—which incidentally stems from a German design—is built in Indiana.

2022 Honda Ridgeline and 2022 Honda Odyssey and 2022 Honda Pilot

Eighth, Ninth, and Tenth Place

Final Assembly: Lincoln, Alabama

Engine Assembly: Lincoln, Alabama

Transmission Assembly: Tallapoosa, Georgia

Talk about déjà vu. Not only do these three vehicles share a platform and powertrain with the fourth-place Passport, but they’re manufactured on the very same assembly lines. Why the disparity in ranking? Cars.com declined to answer our inquiries, but we think it might boil down to slight differences in parts content—the Passport allegedly has 75% of its components sourced from the U.S. and Canada; 5% higher than new 2022 Pilots and Ridgelines.