With substantial tariffs being levied on imported vehicles and other recently introduced legislation and incentives to encourage domestic auto production and sales, there’s been increased focus on new cars still made in America. For some buyers, the country where their car was made may be trivial, but with those aforementioned tariffs and incentives, there’s now more than enough reason than ever to prefer a car built domestically. 

With this in mind, the folks over at Consumer Reports have put together a list of the top new cars and trucks that are made in the United States — and it’s an interesting one. Contrary to what you may assume, the list includes a wide variety of models, not just from American car companies but from Japanese and European companies as well. In fact, the majority of the highest-rated American-made vehicles are from non-American brands, which have long been building some of their most popular models right here in the United States.

Topping the list is not a Chevrolet or Ford product, nor is it a Toyota or Honda — though all of those automakers also have high-scoring American-made models. It’s actually BMW’s popular X5 SUV, made in South Carolina, which wins out as Consumer Reports’ highest-scoring American-built vehicle.

Consumer Reports maintains reliability, quality, and performance ratings for every new vehicle on sale, and the experiment of selecting only American-made models did not diverge much from the overall CR rankings. This is attributed to the large and varied volume of automobile production in the United States from both American and foreign brands. 

The BMW X5 came out on top in the overall score, taking the top spot in the competitive mid-size luxury SUV class. The X5 is built at BMW’s massive Spartanburg, South Carolina factory — and has been long for a long time. The factory opened back in 1994, with X5 production starting there when the model was introduced in 1999 and continuing ever since.

Today, the factory plays a massive role in BMW’s global SUV production, rolling out vehicles not just for the American market but for international export as well. BMW models produced at the factory include not only the X5 but also the smaller X3, which also made Consumer Reports’ Best American-made car list in the compact luxury SUV class. As for the winning X5, Consumer Reports calls this powerful and practical family hauler one of the best luxury SUVs it has ever tested.

While the BMW X5 is Consumer Reports’ highest-scoring American-made vehicle, its margin of victory was not massive. Also ranking high is Chevrolet’s iconic C8 Corvette, which is famously built at General Motors’ plant in Bowling Green, Kentucky. The Corvette was the highest finishing vehicle from an American brand and is joined by the Ford F-150 pickup truck and the Tesla Model Y electric SUV as other top-scoring picks from American automakers.

Japanese brands are well-represented on the list too, with Honda’s Alabama-built Passport SUV and Ridgeline pickup, Ohio-built Accord Hybrid, and Indiana-built Civic all earning high marks. Likewise, it’s no surprise to see Toyota join the list of top-ranked American-made vehicles, with its Georgetown, Kentucky-built Camry sedan and Indiana-built Grand Highlander SUV. Last but not least, Subaru, with its Indiana-built Forester and Crosstrek SUVs, also joins the list.  Interestingly, the only two of Consumer Reports’ overall top-ranked vehicles that had to be bumped from the list for not being built in America were the Mexico-built Ford Maverick pickup and the Canada and Japan-built Lexus NX SUV. 

Whether you are looking to take advantage of tax savings, avoid tariff prices, or have a different reason for choosing an American-made car, Consumer Reports rankings show that buyers have no shortage of domestically-built, high-quality options on the market — even if that vehicle doesn’t have an American automaker’s badge on it.