Kogod School of Business professor Frank DuBois discusses his 12th annual rankings, how they stand out from the industry, and what’s changed since he started ranking the most American-made cars.
Kogod School of Business
How “American” is that car on the showroom floor? Answering that question isn’t quite as simple as you might expect.
For over a decade, Kogod School of Business professor of information technology and analytics Frank DuBois has set out to provide the most comprehensive, data-backed analysis in the US automotive sphere.
Earlier this fall, Dubois released the 2024 Kogod Made in America Auto Index, his yearly ranking of the automobiles with the most—and least—American-made features.
Far more detailed than comparable surveys, Dubois evaluates more than 500 car models each year on their country of origin and more than a half-dozen factors—considering not just the physical attributes of a car, but more “unseen” components like its parent company’s headquarters, and where the vehicle’s research and development took place.
With the help of publicly available data and visits to several car dealerships, Dubois’ 2024 auto index made some striking conclusions.
Electric vehicle giant Tesla occupied several of the top spots this year, followed—several spots down the list—by the Ford Mustang.
Also making a big jump: the Volkswagen ID.4 EV, following the company’s move to shift its manufacturing facility for the vehicle from Germany to Tennessee.
Meanwhile, tariffs proposed by President-elect Donald Trump threaten to shake up the auto landscape in 2025, all as the industry contends with recent years’ surging demand for EVs — boosted by $7,500 tax credits offered as part of the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act.
We spoke with Professor DuBois about how his rankings have evolved since beginning the annual index in 2013.
DuBois: I came up with this index based on other critical items besides just those four factors—percentage of car value that are US and Canadian car parts, country of origin for engine and transmission, and final assembly location— that were in the American Automotive Labeling Act (AALA).
I tried to bring in these other factors like where did the research and development take place? What percentage of the value of the car is from R&D? What percentage of the car is US-sourced labor? Where does the transmission come from? Where is inventory coming from? Where is the engine, and the body, interior, and intellectual part of that?
So, basically, I was adding more variables to the calculation over and above just looking at US and Canadian sourcing.
Tesla took several of the top spots. Tesla was nowhere when I first started doing this 13 years ago. They didn’t show up in any index until a few years later."
Frank DuBois
Professor of Information Technology and Analytics, Kogod School of Business
Ford has a bunch of Mustangs ranked in the top 10. The Honda Passport is in there, Stellantis, the Wranglers. And then, another electric vehicle—the VW ID4—is in there.
One of the deficiencies I have here are the electric vehicles and how to account for how American they are.
For example, I currently assign a particular percentage for the transmission: 7 percent of the value of the car is transmission. Fourteen percent of the value of the vehicle is the engine.
But electric cars are different because they’ve got motors and batteries. The transmission is basically the motor.
You’re trying to compare apples and oranges. And then you get into hybrids, and that’s another monster.
I basically don’t adjust for it now. If anything, for the vehicles that source their batteries from the US, it’s going to push their ranking upward, for sure. The problem is that the AALA data does not mention the origin of the battery.
Essentially, what needs to happen is the AALA data collection needs to be upgraded to account for whether a vehicle is a hybrid, whether it’s 100 percent electric, or whether it’s a traditional internal combustion engine.
We don’t know what’s going to happen.
It’s all up in the air. If you go to the worst-case scenario, you will see high tariffs on Japanese, European, and Korean vehicles.
Remember, the consumer pays for the tariff—unless the manufacturer decides to absorb the tariff.”
Frank DuBois
Professor of Information Technology and Analytics, Kogod School of Business
Take the Ford Expedition, the big sport utility vehicle. The transmission is sourced from China, which could cause General Motors or Ford to completely re-think their sourcing strategy for transmissions for the Expedition.
There are so many variables here. It’s difficult to figure out what’s going to happen until it finally happens, and then, what are the strategic responses going to be for the Japanese automakers, the German automakers, and the Korean automakers…in terms of shifting their supply chain strategy to circumvent the tariffs that could be applied to these vehicles?
Learn more about the Made in America Auto Index here.
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