Tesla Takes the Top Two Spots on America’s Most American-Made List Again

Tesla just landed the No. 1 and No. 2 spots on the 2026 Cars.com American-Made Index, beating out every EV and every gas car in the running.

The Model 3 took first and the Model Y took second. It is the sixth straight year a Tesla has been named the most American-made vehicle.

Cars.com is measuring factory and supply-chain weight behind the badge, and Tesla came out on top again.

The @Tesla Model 3 and Model Y have just been named the #1 and #2 Most American-Made vehicles for 2026 by https://t.co/8eBlPTqKpL. This includes EVs & Gas cars🇺🇸

This is the sixth year in a row that Tesla has claimed the most American-made vehicle. pic.twitter.com/rFtnaC1Urz

— Sawyer Merritt (@SawyerMerritt) June 23, 2026

The Cars.com announcement laid out the full picture ahead of the country’s 250th birthday.

Researchers analyzed 379 model-year 2026 vehicles. Only 86 qualified for the final ranking, down from 99 the year before, which means fewer nameplates cleared the bar even as shoppers are paying closer attention to where their cars are built.

The index grades each car on five factors: final assembly location, the share of U.S. and Canadian parts, where the engine or drive unit comes from, where the transmission comes from, and the size of the automaker’s U.S. manufacturing workforce. That methodology is why the list can look very different from a simple brand-nationality ranking.

The Fremont-built Model 3 took first. The Model Y, built in both Fremont and Austin, took second. Jeep Gladiator, Jeep Grand Cherokee, Honda Ridgeline, Honda Odyssey, Lexus TX, Honda Accord, Acura MDX, and Honda Passport filled out the rest of the top ten.

Cars.com lead researcher Patrick Masterson noted that nearly two-thirds of this year’s list came from foreign automakers, with the Detroit Three holding about a third. Toyota contributed the most models at 14, Honda followed with 13, and Ford led Detroit with nine.

That is the interesting backdrop for Tesla. The index is crowded with companies that build in the United States even if their badges are not Detroit badges, and Tesla still held the first two positions with the two vehicles most people associate with its mass-market lineup.

The buyer side of this is where it gets interesting for anyone who cares about American jobs.

A Cars.com survey found 57% of shoppers said they would pay more for a vehicle that creates U.S. jobs. Nearly half said tariffs are a concern while shopping, and 42% said tariffs made them more likely to buy American-made.

So an index that started as a curiosity now tracks something real in the market. People are putting money behind the idea, and the cars at the very top of that list are Teslas.

This year’s results look different from last year, and that part is worth saying plainly.

Tesla tops 2026 American-Made Index again, but two familiar models are gone https://t.co/8liHM9JET2

— Drive Tesla 🇨🇦 (@DriveTeslaca) June 23, 2026

Drive Tesla flagged the change at the top. In 2025, Tesla swept all four leading spots with the Model 3, Model Y, Model S, and Model X.

That clean sweep is over. Tesla discontinued the Model S and Model X earlier this year, so both fell out of eligibility after years as fixtures near the top of the index.

The Cybertruck is absent too, but not because of where it is built. It falls outside the Federal Highway Administration’s definition of a light-duty passenger vehicle, the same rule that keeps the Rivian R1T off the list.

Other once-dominant EVs vanished as well, including the Volkswagen ID.4, which had previously climbed as high as third before being discontinued.

So Tesla finished the year with two cars in the running instead of four, and still walked away with both of the top spots.

There was one more shuffle worth noting at the very top.

Not a Tesla App pointed out that the order flipped this year. In 2025 the Model Y ranked first and the Model 3 came second, so the 2026 list changed the podium order instead of recycling last year’s result.

For 2026 the Model 3 reclaimed the crown and pushed the Model Y back to second. The site also noted how much Tesla’s index footprint has changed from the years when Model S, Model X, Model 3, Model Y, and Cybertruck could dominate the conversation at once.

The cleaner takeaway is that the two models still at the center of Tesla’s U.S. passenger-car business held the top two spots even after the lineup changed. The Model 3 and Model Y beat every legacy automaker on the domestic-content and U.S.-manufacturing weight Cars.com measured.

Strip away the lineup changes and the picture is simple. The two best-selling mass-market Teslas are the two most American-made cars you can buy, and they have held that ground for six years straight.