[tripleblack]

Much is being made about what is (and is not) an "American" car.

Deep philosophical questions regarding what constitutes "American" aside, it occurs to me that it might be good to have an actual scorecard we could examine for Local Content in each vehicle.

Even defining "Local" can be tricky, given the "North American" description commonly used by the manufacturers, and the fact that said continent includes both Canada and Mexico, which few people call truly "American".

NAFTA has an impact, and in fact may present a barrier to true knowledge, given the fact that it is now codified into some of the laws and regulations used to define how products need to be identified.

I'm looing into just where the three titularly American companies (Ford, GM and DC) actually manufacture their major components and where they assemble the final product.

Ford has three major familities in Mexico (though they are reportedly considering a huge, fourth new factory). They assemble F150 trucks, Fusions, and Icons (sp?) down there (the latter is a vehicle not sold in the US, so it is moot to this discussion. They also make transmissions there, though I do not know whether this is in a single factory or more. Other items being made south of the border may exist, and I will add to this database as I run across this information.

Ford had a number of assembly plants in Canada, but the only plant I'm sure of is their Windsor engine plant (which is slated to be closed in the next year or so).

Obviously, Ford also produces motors in the US (the Romeo plant is famous for its V8 products), as well as the majority of trucks and cars are assembled here.

Component (parts) manufacture is still largely in the United States, though an increasing number of parts are being made in Mexico, Asia, and particularly Red China. Identifying this list would be very helpful to the cause.

With PARTIAL assembly in multiple countries (I believe the F150, for instance, is made in all 3 countries in North America), determining the unique American content of a particular truck would require finding out where it was assembled. However, for purposes of our study, it would probably suffice to just find out the % made in the various locations, and apply that as an average to the total, though if MOST of the production of F150 trucks made in Mexico is consumed south of the border, that becomes a problem with this logic...

Many of the reports I've read on this topic in the news lacks this detail, and presumably is written either from a positon of relative ignorance, or for the purpose of fitting some subtle bias of the author.