The Top Ten Most American-Made Vehicles Include Four From Honda

Where cars are built has taken on a new importance in the Trump era and the administration will probably be surprised to learn that four vehicles from Honda made the Cars.com top ten list of the most American-made vehicles.

Due to globalization, this isn’t necessarily a cut and dry process as modern vehicles can be designed and developed in one country, feature powertrain components from another and be built in a third. That’s even before you factor in the assortment of other components that can come from a variety of other countries.

While the Jeep Wrangler was declared last year’s most American vehicle, the redesigned model uses more components sourced from aboard. As a result, it has fallen completely off the list.

The news isn’t all bad for Jeep as the 2018 Cherokee was deemed this year’s winner. As the website notes, the crossover is built in the United States, features US-sourced engines and transmissions and has a domestic-parts content rating of 72 percent.

The second and third place finishers were the Honda Odyssey and Ridgeline. While Honda is a Japanese company, both models are built in Alabama and features US-sourced powertrains as well as plenty of domestically produced parts.

The Acura MDX (excluding the hybrid variant) and the Honda Pilot also made the list. This means Honda had the highest number of vehicles in the top ten beating out US competitors such as Ford, General Motors and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles.

Speaking of domestic models, the outgoing Ford Taurus was ranked fourth while the Chevrolet Volt came in fifth. Other top ten models include the Ford Explorer, Ford F-150, and Chevrolet Corvette.

While American-made vehicles only accounted for approximately 53 percent of passenger vehicles sold in the United States in the first quarter of 2018, the automotive industry supports hundreds of thousands of jobs. Around 250,000 people are directly employed by automakers at US plants and thousands more work in white collar positions. That’s not even factoring in the countless number of people employed by suppliers, dealerships and other automotive-related companies.

Top Ten Most American-Made Vehicles

1. Jeep Cherokee
2. Honda Odyssey
3. Honda Ridgeline
4. Ford Taurus
5. Chevrolet Volt
6. Honda Pilot
7. Acura MDX
8. Ford Explorer
9. Ford F-150
10. Chevrolet Corvette