QOTD: Do You Care Where Your Car Is Built?

Timothy Cain
by Timothy Cain

Americans who take possession of a new Jaguar E-Pace can check their VIN to see that the subcompact luxury crossover was assembled in Austria. Each of the 36,813 Buick Envisions sold in the United States through June were imported from China. The Ford Fusion comes from Hermosillo, Mexico; the Honda Accord comes from Marysville, Ohio.

BMW builds SUVs in South Carolina. Mercedes-Benz builds cars and SUVs in Alabama. Volkswagen builds the Atlas and Passat in Tennessee. The Toyota Camry is built in Kentucky, although there’ll be a handful of new 2018 models coming all the way from Japan.

The global automotive market has spoken. “A lot of consumers have no idea where their cars are built,” Renault’s Francois Mariotte tells AutoExpress. Perhaps there are customers who struggle with the notion of German cars being assembled in Mexico, for example, but as Renault’s Mariotte says: “The quality of the car is never determined by the country it’s built in. It’s determined by the processes we put into the factory.”

But do you care where your next new vehicle is assembled?

It’s a reasonable question. If you’re building a new home, you want to know more about the builder’s reputation. If you’re compiling an Olympic basketball team, you need to see proof of citizenship. People certainly like to know if their gourmet burger’s beef is local or not.

So when it comes to cars, do you need your Volvo hails from Sweden, or is a South Carolina facility worthy? Would you choose the Audi Q7 over the BMW X5 in order to get the full European experience, even though the Q7 is built in Slovakia, not Germany? Is the Chevrolet Camaro more appealing to you now that it’s assembled in Michigan, instead of Canada?

Do you care where your car is built?

[Images: Toyota, BMW]

Timothy Cain is a contributing analyst at The Truth About Cars and Autofocus.ca and the founder and former editor of GoodCarBadCar.net. Follow on Twitter @timcaincars.

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  • Rengaw Rengaw on Jul 27, 2017

    I want the money I pay for a vehicle to be a reward and an encouragement to those who made it. I don't care where it comes from. To promote the best craftsmanship will have other manufacturers following suit. To purchase less than a stellar product is to encourage craftsmanship in the wrong direction.

  • Mchan1 Mchan1 on Jul 27, 2017

    Where the vehicle is built as in assembled? Not really. Business is now conducted internationally so you have parts made outside and inside the U.S. If it's assembled in the U.S., great.. more jobs for Americans. As long as the vehicle is reliable and affordable, that's really what many people think and want.

  • CanadaCraig You can just imagine how quickly the tires are going to wear out on a 5,800 lbs AWD 2024 Dodge Charger.
  • Luke42 I tried FSD for a month in December 2022 on my Model Y and wasn’t impressed.The building-blocks were amazing but sum of the all of those amazing parts was about as useful as Honda Sensing in terms of reducing the driver’s workload.I have a list of fixes I need to see in Autopilot before I blow another $200 renting FSD. But I will try it for free for a month.I would love it if FSD v12 lived up to the hype and my mind were changed. But I have no reason to believe I might be wrong at this point, based on the reviews I’ve read so far. [shrug]. I’m sure I’ll have more to say about it once I get to test it.
  • FormerFF We bought three new and one used car last year, so we won't be visiting any showrooms this year unless a meteor hits one of them. Sorry to hear that Mini has terminated the manual transmission, a Mini could be a fun car to drive with a stick.It appears that 2025 is going to see a significant decrease in the number of models that can be had with a stick. The used car we bought is a Mk 7 GTI with a six speed manual, and my younger daughter and I are enjoying it quite a lot. We'll be hanging on to it for many years.
  • Oberkanone Where is the value here? Magna is assembling the vehicles. The IP is not novel. Just buy the IP at bankruptcy stage for next to nothing.
  • Jalop1991 what, no Turbo trim?
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