How American is your truck?

Every year, the folks at Cars.com push out the American-Made Index, ranking vehicles that have final assembly in the U.S. on how American they are. The results are always surprising – especially when you look at pickup trucks. While you might assume that “American” brands like Ford, Chevy, GMC and Ram would be “the most American,” you’d be wrong.

For the third year in a row, the most American truck is the Honda Ridgeline, and it ranks No. 6 overall on the American Made Index for 2024, which is up three places from the 2023 AMI. Last year, the Ridgeline was the only truck that made the top-10 list for the index, but this year one other pickup makes the list: the Jeep Gladiator, which ranks No. 8.

How the American-Made Index works

To come up with the AMI, Cars.com looks at the more than 400 vehicles currently on sale, then whittles the list down to vehicles that have final assembly in the U.S. After that vehicle weight and sales volume play a role in which vehicles make the list, which is why you don’t see heavy-duty trucks on the list. But it’s also why you don’t see the Rivian R1T or Tesla Cybertruck on the list. These vehicles are too heavy and don’t have enough sales volume.

After you take these factors into consideration, the vehicles left get ranked based on final assembly location, engine sourcing, transmission sourcing, U.S. manufacturing workforce and the percentage of Canadian and U.S. parts.

Why is the AMI important?

According to Cars.com research 56% of buyers said, yes, they’d be willing to pay more for a vehicle if it created more American jobs. And of those “yessers,” 58% said they’d be willing to pay up to 10% more for an American-made vehicle. Additionally, the publication’s research shows that Gen Z is the most willing to pay more for a vehicle if it brings more jobs to America.

How American is your truck?

The days of Chevy, Ford and Ram dominating the AMI are gone. You see the midsize GM twins hit the list in the 20s, but the most American full-size truck is the old-school Ram 1500 Classic at No. 19. The more tech-forward full-size trucks don’t hit the index until slot 43, and then you see the regular Ram 1500 hit the list. The Ford F-150, Chevy Silverado 1500 and GMC Sierra 1500 are at the bottom of the truck list, and the last two are near the end of the AMI overall.

The truck rankings are as follows:

Here’s the interesting caveat with the Sierra and Silverado, even though final assembly for the duo is listed as Roanoke, Indiana, not all of these trucks are built in that plant. The Sierra is built in Roanoke or Mexico. The Silverado is even trickier because it has trucks that are built in Roanoke, Mexico or Canada. So, if you are truly interested in buying the exact truck that provided American jobs, you’ll probably want to check out a VIN decoder, like the one on the NHTSA website, to verify where the specific truck you want to buy was built.

Missing trucks

There are three trucks that are conspicuously absent from the list. The Toyota Tacoma, we learned last year, is now exclusively built in Mexico, which excludes it from consideration. The Ford Maverick is also built in Mexico.

But the Ford Ranger, which is has final assembly in Michigan, is a different story. Cars.com does its data collection in May looking at 2024 Quarter 1 sales, and the Ranger didn’t meet the minimum sales requirement at just 1,918 units sold. Patrick Masterson, the creator of the AMI, said given the 2024 redesign of the midsize truck, he wouldn’t be surprised to see Ranger back on the list in 2025.

The bottom line

In a global economy, American vehicles can actually be produced by a foreign automaker. So, as a consumer, you have to decide if you would rather give money to a traditionally American brand that may be building its trucks outside of the U.S. – and therefore giving jobs to non Americans – or a foreign automaker who is giving a lot of jobs to Americans

So, defining how American your truck is truly depends on what you think is American. Sound off below: Would you rather give more Americans more jobs or would you rather stick with a traditionally American brand regardless of where it is produced?

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