Now into its 21st year of publication, Cars.com’s American-Made Index has again named the cars that are most American based on a number of factors that highlight American parts and manufacturing. We ranked all qualifying vehicles built and bought in the U.S. for model-year 2026 — and though the nameplate at the top, Tesla’s Model 3, is a familiar one, what follows it provides a snapshot of an automotive industry still in flux amid the past few years’ policy whiplash and shifting priorities both for the automakers themselves and the shoppers who buy them.

Related: Which Cars Are Made Outside the U.S.?

Our study determines the order via the same criteria we’ve had since 2020 (more on those details below). Some 379 vehicles of model-year 2026 vintage were analyzed to qualify the vehicles that ultimately made the full list of 86, which can be found above and in badges around the Research section of our site.

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The More Things Change, Etc.

Both of those counts are down from 2025, which featured 99 vehicles from a pool of 400. Those are fairly significant drops for just one model year, but there are a multitude of reasons for them. One of which is that multiple electric vehicles that in previous years ranked high on the list have been discontinued, which disqualifies a model from our index.

Tesla is a good example to start with, in fact: The Texas-based company announced in January that it would discontinue its long-running Model S sedan and gullwing-doored Model X SUV, two all-electrics that have featured prominently in the index’s top 10 since the automaker first started participating in 2020. Volkswagen’s ID.4, which had been built in Tennessee and ranked as high as third on our list in 2024 before its discontinuation for 2026, is another example; whether it returns remains to be seen, though Volkswagen says its discontinuation is temporary.

However, this allows for more variety at the sharp end of the list.

Elsewhere, slow sales of such vehicles as the Hyundai Ioniq 9 and last year’s No. 6-ranked Kia EV6 show that though the price of fuel is a persistent concern for consumers — in a recent Cars.com survey, 36% ranked it as either the most or second-most important factor when buying a car — the overall cost matters more. EVs’ expensive proposition (atop new-car prices that average more than $50,000) marginalizes them in the grander scheme of things.

Still, even with the lower count, another story is developing alongside it: Many vehicles that remain have higher domestic parts content percentages, which suggests changing supply chains in service of reshoring at least some elements of production. The top 10 of this year’s index has averaged 70% for the second straight year, the highest it’s been since the methodology changed to its current form for 2020, and several vehicles leapt up the rankings in part because their domestic parts content percentages were increased. That includes the No. 4-ranked Jeep Grand Cherokee, which jumped 66 spots on the back of increasing its U.S./Canadian parts content percentage 14%, and the Lexus TX 350, whose engines and transmissions that are now made entirely in the U.S. helped it rise 34 spots.

Automakers’ ongoing strategic redirections will be something to continue to watch closely in the next few years, not just because it affects domestic parts content percentages or where a transmission gets built, but because it affects the most important component in all of this: you. Whether it’s the availability of certain trims and powertrains or the window sticker when you go to buy, each automaker is trying to plan for what it’ll need on dealer lots for its customers before you even think to start shopping. In what has long been a slow-moving industry, the accelerated nature of today’s marketplace demands more; this list is a testament to how automakers are attempting to keep up as the nation celebrates its 250th birthday.

How Does the AMI Get Made?

Minor tweaks to account for fresh scenarios aside, the AMI’s basic methodology remains unchanged for 2026. We consider five major factors:

• Location(s) of final assembly
• Percentage of U.S. and Canadian parts
• Countries of origin for all available engines
• Countries of origin for all available transmissions
• U.S. manufacturing workforce

While we don’t reveal the weighting and calculation methodology, each factor is essential, as are a number of disqualifiers explained below. Models are ranked on a 100-point scale, with heavier curb weights functioning as a tiebreaker when necessary.

Final assembly location(s)

Arguably the most important factor for index qualification is final assembly at one of 46 U.S. plants run by 13 major automaker groups and their subsidiaries that currently mass-produce light-duty passenger vehicles. (We adopt the Federal Highway Administration’s definition of light-duty vehicles, which allows for up to 10,000 pounds’ gross vehicle weight rating. This classification is separate from the EPA’s classification system, which rates light-duty vehicles up to 8,500 pounds and is why heavy-duty trucks like the Tesla Cybertruck and Rivian R1T don’t get fuel-economy ratings or more detailed assembly information.) But automakers run scores of additional plants for powertrains, castings, stampings, batteries and other vehicle parts, while third-party suppliers run additional facilities beyond that. And just because a model may be made in a U.S. assembly plant doesn’t necessarily mean it’s exclusively made here. We account for that with scoring reductions for imported volume.

Percentage of U.S. and Canadian parts

This component employs data from the American Automobile Labeling Act, which has been in effect since 1994 and requires automakers to report the overall percentage of U.S. and Canadian content, by value, for most vehicles they sell. Some automakers report a single percentage per nameplate; others break out unique percentages by powertrain, trim level or assembly location. In such cases, the AMI employs sales-weighted averages for the score.

Combining Canadian and U.S. parts content is a flaw we can’t reverse-engineer, but a clear advantage is that unlike other systems rating domestic automotive content — such as calculations for regional value content under trade agreements or delineations for import versus domestic cars in fuel-economy mandates — the AALA makes this information more legible to the consumer. The act requires automakers disclose this percentage on window stickers or nearby placards for most new vehicles not yet sold. While automakers don’t furnish U.S. versus Canadian parts content and public data don’t exist to distinguish each, we compensate by factoring in engine and transmission origins to more accurately identify two major cost-intensive components of each vehicle.

Countries of origin for available engines

The AALA mandates automakers report the country of origin for all available engines and transmissions, but it can get complex — a nameplate might have one available engine from one country but another from a different country, or an EV might feature the same battery option — otherwise indistinguishable to the consumer — that’s sourced from two different countries. As with U.S. and Canadian parts content, the AMI applies sales-weighted scoring to account for the variances.

Countries of origin for available transmissions

The process is the same for transmissions, another AALA requirement. Here, too, the index applies weighted scores as needed.

U.S. manufacturing workforce

The AALA doesn’t focus on labor value, especially in a vehicle’s final assembly. Thus, we analyze each automaker’s direct U.S. workforce involved in the manufacture of light-duty vehicles and their parts, factored against that automaker’s U.S. output relative to the industry, to determine its workforce factor.

There are disqualifying factors, as well. Regardless of assembly location, these vehicles are ineligible:

• Models with a gross vehicle weight rating above 8,500 pounds — mostly full-size vans, three-quarter- and 1-ton pickup trucks, and larger commercial vehicles — which are exempt from AALA requirements.
• Models from automakers that build fewer than 1,000 cars in a given model year. Such cars are exempt from certain AALA requirements.
• Models set for imminent discontinuation, or production moving outside the U.S., without a clear U.S.-built successor.
• Models not yet on sale at the time of the study (in this case, spring 2026) even if they’re from the current model year.
• Models intended solely for government or commercial fleets.
• Models that don’t meet minimum sales or inventory thresholds. (Such thresholds cover roughly 98% of all passenger vehicle sales, so exclusions here are minimal.)
• Models for which we cannot verify sufficient information from automakers, dealership audits, Cars.com inventory and government records.

This year’s study draws on data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, all major automakers and Automotive News, as well as analyses of more than 176,000 vehicles in Cars.com inventory and in-person audits of around 450 dealer vehicles.

A given model under AMI consideration includes all variants under the root nameplate unless they’re substantially electrified or use separate platforms. (We judge milder hybrid applications as acceptable to fold into the parent vehicle’s ranking.)

Under our platform rule, vehicles like the Toyota Corolla and Toyota Corolla Cross are separate AMI entrants due to their different underlying architecture. By contrast, vehicles with different root nameplates are always distinct regardless of the architecture; the Chevrolet Colorado and GMC Canyon pickups have almost identical underpinnings, but since they have different names, they’re listed separately.

Cars That Don’t Make the List Still Help Americans

The gas-only Honda Civic rounds out our rankings at No. 86 for 2026, but that’s just scratching the surface of the automotive industry. Among the 379 light-duty models automakers sell (or plan to) in the U.S. for the 2026 model year, 119 are made solely in the U.S.; 243 are imported; and 17 are split between domestic and imported assembly lines.

Such imports and unranked domestics disqualified on other grounds significantly contribute to the economy beyond the jobs that build light- and heavy-duty vehicles. Think of the jobs involving vehicle parts or those that are employed in dealership operations both for new and used vehicles.

Then think of the maintenance work required to keep those cars on the road. That includes independent repair shops; jobs attributable to auto parts, accessories and tire stores; workers at wholesalers that include auction houses; and, of course, those employed at gas stations. Ultimately, whether your car is assembled in the U.S. or imported from abroad, driving and servicing it helps contribute to an automotive industry that puts food on the table for millions of people across the country.

Cars.com’s Editorial department is your source for automotive news and reviews. In line with Cars.com’s long-standing ethics policy, editors and reviewers don’t accept gifts or free trips from automakers. The Editorial department is independent of Cars.com’s advertising, sales and sponsored content departments.