Imported From Detroit??

[Charger_Dart]

I came across the 2012 listing by NHTSA on the North American Content in today's new cars. Makes me wonder about how you could possibly shop for a car these days that contains mostly North American parts. 

The vehicle with the highest NA content - Toyota Matrix 95% (and it has a Japanese sourced transmission!)

The highest Dodge is Grand Caravan at 79%
The new Challenger 66%
The new Charger 63%

The lowest Dodge is the Journey at a crappy 36%

Kind of makes you wonder...

http://www.nhtsa.gov/staticfiles/rulemaking/pdf/AALA/2012_AALA_Alpha_9-6-2012.pdf

[Mike DC]

 
These days the parts are not the primary expenditure involved in making a car.  The labor is a small piece of the pie too. 

The vast majority of the cost is the designing process.

[Ghoste]

How long before they are 100% made in China I wonder?

[ACUDANUT]

Looks like Ford is the winner, (trucks) with a 75 percent USA.

[Budnicks]

These days the parts are not the primary expenditure involved in making a car.  The labor is a small piece of the pie too.  

The vast majority of the cost is the designing process.

Research & design, failure/destructive testing too, Inflated Union Labor Costs, Pension Plans & health/Dental care, along with Golden Parachute contracts of the CFO CEO COO salaries   are a big part too, I'm sure

[Trulyvintage]

Looks like Ford is the winner, (trucks) with a 75 percent USA.

Why I drive a Ford truck ...

Final assembly was in Kentucky ...   


Jim

[Charger_Dart]

I should of posted this link instead, it has vehicles ranked by percentage instead of make -

http://www.nhtsa.gov/staticfiles/rulemaking/pdf/AALA/2012_AALA_Percent_9-6-2012.pdf

Looks like the Toyota and Ford Trucks are both tied at 75%

[hatersaurusrex]

Looks like Ford is the winner, (trucks) with a 75 percent USA.

Why I drive a Ford truck ...

Final assembly was in Kentucky ...   


Jim

Yep, mine was in VA and my dad's was in Dearborn

[Rolling_Thunder]

Looks like Ford is the winner, (trucks) with a 75 percent USA.

Why I drive a Ford truck ...

Final assembly was in Kentucky ...   


Jim

My Toyota - final assembly = Texas

[Fred]

Can you believe it!  We've got the full Opel car range here now. I don't know why...........there's nothing wrong with our Holden range (same thing) so why import the German equivilent.
But no doubt people will buy them because it's German made (although having said that, they're probably made in China anyway) and people just love to buy imported cars. (Gives some of them a sense of superiority).
Go figure
I prefer to say I drive a Holden than I drive a Opel.

Besides, we need to look after our own economy and let Germany worry about theirs.

[ACUDANUT]

Your Toyota's are still owned by the Japs and IMO, are not helping the USA out. However, it's a free Country and I respect that.  You can buy anything you want, foreign or Domestic.  That's what makes this such a great country.  I will say that our patriotism towards our cars (Ford, GM and Chrysler) is hurting.  The Japanese however are very patriotic, they rarely buy anything buy Japanese...When I lived there for over a year, I Hadley ever saw one of them drive a U.S. car. 

[Cooter]

For my daily, I prefer Toyota/Hondas. Reason being is I repair this Junk that us Americans call vehicles and most of them are just that. One has a great engine, trans is junk...One has a great trans, engine is junk...

Most of the Hondas/Toyotas I repair have at LEAST 300K miles on 'em. Many are Automatics too. Straight drive I can see, but an automatic? Geesh. Proof enough for me. Hell, you can't even get anything American built anymore. Working on a Saturn with an Opel engine (Think Caddy CTS V6). Oh boy...What a turd. Oil cooler in the "V" of engine that tends to leak. Wanna guess what happens then?

And the more the publics mouth begins to water over these little V6's putting out 300 HP, I can see more and more problems. They simply won't stay together. However, Toyota built a 3.0 Inline 6 Cyl. that can produce over 800 HP and be driven daily. Lemme see an American car company do that, and i'll rethink my buying. No big Car unions to rape the country, no big CEO's that need another $1 Million in their bank accounts, etc...

[ACUDANUT]

MY 2001 Chevy Blazer had 300k miles on it before I traded it in.  Never had a problem with the Engine or Transmission.

[Ponch ®]

Looks like the Toyota and Ford Trucks are both tied at 75%

yeah, BUT the profit - all $1000 or so they make per car - goes to Japan. Which is MUCH, MUCH worse than the millions that those darn U.S. Toyota plants where they are built pump into the local economies. Or you can buy an all American Dodge...which is probably built in Mexico and Canada (pumping millions into THEIR economies). At least the $500 profit comes here. 

[Charger_Dart]

I guess what hit me was that I could walk into a Toyota dealership and buy a Matrix that almost every part used to build it came from US & Canada manufactures (I see many jobs for people)

Or I could go to my local Dodge dealer and buy a Journey that contains very little from US & Canada companies (I see fewer North American jobs) 

Not that I would buy either one, just seems strange to me. We really live in a global economy with everything interconnected in someway.

   

[Ponch ®]

I guess what hit me was that I could walk into a Toyota dealership and buy a Matrix that almost every part used to build it came from US & Canada manufactures (I see many jobs for people)

Or I could go to my local Dodge dealer and buy a Journey that contains very little from US & Canada companies (I see fewer North American jobs) 

Not that I would buy either one, just seems strange to me. We really live in a global economy with everything interconnected in someway.

   

yeah, I still joke about how"American" my 2008 Charger is...built in Canada, with a Mexican engine and a German transmission.

[hatersaurusrex]

I always hear the argument that 'The profit goes overseas' and that statement is always an extreme exaggeration.    A publically held multinational corporation like Toyota simply reinvests any profit into growth, cash reserves, or paying their shareholders dividends, which are spread all over the world anyway.   It's not like that money is going into some giant bank in Osaka.   If you buy an 'American' car, the profit does the same thing, gets reinvested into somewhere or gets paid out as a dividend to shareholders, which are again, all over the world.   There might be a little more money dumped into the Japanese economy because the majority shareholders are concentrated there vs the US, but the tilt is very little I'd guess.

That said, I buy American when I can out of pure pride and nothing else.   I'm a fiercely loyal person, and the only 'foreign' cars I've owned have been a used Datsun pickup from the '70's and an old Saab 900 that was given to me (great car, by the way).    Our manufacturing base is nearly dead, and I prefer to support one of the few industries that still - to some degree - keeps real American manufacturing alive.    If someone else chooses not to, that's OK too.   I'd prefer they buy a brand whose final assembly is in the US, like Nissan or Toyota pickups, because it supports American workers, rather than a pure import, but again it's your choice.   Profit has much less to do with it than the network of jobs and raw materials, transport, and a ton of other ancilliary industries which benefit from manufacturing being in the US.

The only people I really 'judge' for their car choices are the ill informed douchebag eco-nazis who buy a Prius simply to rub it in someone's face.    I asked a co-worker who had a Honda Insight once... what's better for the environment, your car that gets 60MPG or a 91 Geo Metro that gets 60MPG?  She said 'mine of course, it's a hybrid'.  Ignorance.

[Budnicks]

I always hear the argument that 'The profit goes overseas' and that statement is always an extreme exaggeration.    A publically held multinational corporation like Toyota simply reinvests any profit into growth, cash reserves, or paying their shareholders dividends, which are spread all over the world anyway.   It's not like that money is going into some giant bank in Osaka.   If you buy an 'American' car, the profit does the same thing, gets reinvested into somewhere or gets paid out as a dividend to shareholders, which are again, all over the world.   There might be a little more money dumped into the Japanese economy because the majority shareholders are concentrated there vs the US, but the tilt is very little I'd guess.

That said, I buy American when I can out of pure pride and nothing else.   I'm a fiercely loyal person, and the only 'foreign' cars I've owned have been a used Datsun pickup from the '70's and an old Saab 900 that was given to me (great car, by the way).    Our manufacturing base is nearly dead, and I prefer to support one of the few industries that still - to some degree - keeps real American manufacturing alive.    If someone else chooses not to, that's OK too.   I'd prefer they buy a brand whose final assembly is in the US, like Nissan or Toyota pickups, because it supports American workers, rather than a pure import, but again it's your choice.   Profit has much less to do with it than the network of jobs and raw materials, transport, and a ton of other ancilliary industries which benefit from manufacturing being in the US.

The only people I really 'judge' for their car choices are the ill informed douchebag eco-nazis who buy a Prius simply to rub it in someone's face.    I asked a co-worker who had a Honda Insight once... what's better for the environment, your car that gets 60MPG or a 91 Geo Metro that gets 60MPG?  She said 'mine of course, it's a hybrid'.  Ignorance.

I like your style 

[ACUDANUT]

Ponch,
"BUT the profit - all $1000 or so they make per car - goes to Japan"
Where do you come up with BS number, per Toyota, Honda ect that go's back to Japan. ?

[Mytur Binsdirti]

 Detroit really has become a 3rd world country inside America, so it is understandable why they use the phrase "imported from Detroit".

[Ghoste]

How often have you been there?