The two thousand fifteen American-Made Index
CARS.COM – Cars with at least seventy five percent domestic content are becoming an endangered species, and for the very first time in the American-Made Index’s nine-year history, the list has fewer than ten cars.
The Toyota Camry took the top spot this year, as 2014’s top vehicle – the Ford F-150 – fell below seventy five percent in domestic-parts content with its two thousand fifteen model-year redesign. The Toyota Sienna, Honda Odyssey and Chevrolet Corvette come back to the list alongside GM’s three-row crossovers: the Chevrolet Traverse, GMC Acadia and Buick Enclave. The Michigan-built SUVs were last on the AMI in 2013.
It’s not that automakers are slowing U.S. production. If anything, the opposite is true: Excluding heavy-duty trucks and commercial vehicles, automakers assemble one hundred one models in this country for the two thousand fifteen model year, from Chevrolet sedans to BMW SUVs. These cars combine for the vast majority of new-car sales, and U.S. production remains on the rise.
What is shrinking is the percent of overall domestic-parts content. Five years ago, twenty nine cars qualified for the American-Made Index. Today it’s fewer than Ten. Consider the opposing paths of U.S. auto production versus so-called “homegrown” cars:
An Alternative Treatment
Once negligible, U.S. auto exports have been on the rise, hitting a record Two.1 million cars in two thousand fourteen as lower labor costs and relative economic stability mean higher production at U.S. factories. With enlargening exports in the mix, do U.S. sales alone paint an adequate picture of how many autoworkers are employed building a car?
As it turns out, yes. An alternative treatment to the AMI that we’ve attempted in latest years is to factor domestic-parts content with production instead of sales. For 2015, the results would exchange just two cars:
2015 Production-Based Index (2015 AMI rank)
- 1. Toyota Camry (1)
- Two. Chevrolet Traverse (Three)
- Trio. Toyota Sienna (Two)
- Four. Honda Odyssey (Four)
- Five. GMC Acadia (Five)
- 6. Buick Enclave (6)
- 7. Chevrolet Corvette (7)
Sources: Automakers, Automotive News, National Highway Traffic Safety Administration
Production drives employment: Take the Camry, which is assembled at Toyota’s Georgetown, Ky., plant as well as in Lafayette, Ind., through a partnership with Subaru. The non-hybrid Camry accounts for about a quarter of the cars that Subaru’s Lafayette plant produces and about two-thirds of the cars that Toyota’s Georgetown plant produces. If you took the same ratio of employees from each plant, the Camry supports about Five,900 assembly-plant workers, according to employment figures provided by each plant. Using the same methodology to evaluate others on the AMI, Toyota’s family sedan still directly supports the most Americans:
Of course, it’s never a clean split. Autoworkers typically build numerous vehicles on the same line, and certain management positions would exist whether a plant builds five hundred cars or Five,000. Then there are the research and development, supplier, marketing and dealership jobs that a given car supports, which are a lot more numerous than assembly-plant employment but firmer to correlate to individual car models. But it goes to showcase that higher sales mean more production, and more production equals more employees.
The two thousand fifteen American-Made Index News
The two thousand fifteen American-Made Index
CARS.COM – Cars with at least seventy five percent domestic content are becoming an endangered species, and for the very first time in the American-Made Index’s nine-year history, the list has fewer than ten cars.
The Toyota Camry took the top spot this year, as 2014’s top vehicle – the Ford F-150 – fell below seventy five percent in domestic-parts content with its two thousand fifteen model-year redesign. The Toyota Sienna, Honda Odyssey and Chevrolet Corvette comeback to the list alongside GM’s three-row crossovers: the Chevrolet Traverse, GMC Acadia and Buick Enclave. The Michigan-built SUVs were last on the AMI in 2013.
It’s not that automakers are slowing U.S. production. If anything, the opposite is true: Excluding heavy-duty trucks and commercial vehicles, automakers assemble one hundred one models in this country for the two thousand fifteen model year, from Chevrolet sedans to BMW SUVs. These cars combine for the vast majority of new-car sales, and U.S. production remains on the rise.
What is shrinking is the percent of overall domestic-parts content. Five years ago, twenty nine cars qualified for the American-Made Index. Today it’s fewer than Ten. Consider the opposing paths of U.S. auto production versus so-called “homegrown” cars:
An Alternative Treatment
Once negligible, U.S. auto exports have been on the rise, hitting a record Two.1 million cars in two thousand fourteen as lower labor costs and relative economic stability mean higher production at U.S. factories. With enlargening exports in the mix, do U.S. sales alone paint an adequate picture of how many autoworkers are employed building a car?
As it turns out, yes. An alternative treatment to the AMI that we’ve attempted in latest years is to factor domestic-parts content with production instead of sales. For 2015, the results would exchange just two cars:
2015 Production-Based Index (2015 AMI rank)
- 1. Toyota Camry (1)
- Two. Chevrolet Traverse (Trio)
- Three. Toyota Sienna (Two)
- Four. Honda Odyssey (Four)
- Five. GMC Acadia (Five)
- 6. Buick Enclave (6)
- 7. Chevrolet Corvette (7)
Sources: Automakers, Automotive News, National Highway Traffic Safety Administration
Production drives employment: Take the Camry, which is assembled at Toyota’s Georgetown, Ky., plant as well as in Lafayette, Ind., through a partnership with Subaru. The non-hybrid Camry accounts for about a quarter of the cars that Subaru’s Lafayette plant produces and about two-thirds of the cars that Toyota’s Georgetown plant produces. If you took the same ratio of employees from each plant, the Camry supports about Five,900 assembly-plant workers, according to employment figures provided by each plant. Using the same methodology to evaluate others on the AMI, Toyota’s family sedan still directly supports the most Americans:
Of course, it’s never a clean split. Autoworkers typically build numerous vehicles on the same line, and certain management positions would exist whether a plant builds five hundred cars or Five,000. Then there are the research and development, supplier, marketing and dealership jobs that a given car supports, which are a lot more numerous than assembly-plant employment but stiffer to correlate to individual car models. But it goes to demonstrate that higher sales mean more production, and more production equals more employees.