“All cars source at least some parts internationally, but some are more “American” than others. Cars.com’s American-Made Index ranks the “most American” cars and one brand has topped the list consistently for the last several years: Tesla.”
The story goes that when Tesla was new, no one wanted to work with them since new auto companies generally fail, and it was EVs at that. Additionally, there wasn’t a supply chain to support EVs either.
So in addition to setting up new supply chains (which did involve overseas stuff) they ended up making a lot of their own things, becoming very vertically integrated from the start. That learning to support themselves has persisted ever since.
They were always pretty focused on keeping the supply chain as local as possible as that reduces all the shipping costs. There are actually parts you could buy overseas for $X but when you look at the life cycle of that object it’s actually gone around the world many times before it becomes what you want. You can save a lot of money if you find a way to avoid that. That could for example involve finding a raw material company locally, and then convincing a local manufacturing company to build this new thing for you using raw materials from the other local company. It’s not simply oh we just find someone already making this existing thing in USA instead of China (but it can be that too), it’s actually putting the supply chain and manufacturing capacity together so it becomes local.
It’s probably one of the biggest reasons why they make more money on their EVs than others.
They’ve literally built a lithium refining facility as an example of the level of vertical integration they have. They plan to extract their own lithium in the future (they own land in Nevada with it), refine it themselves (this year), they build their own cathode, and put it into their own battery cells.
Isn’t most of Tesla made in countries other than the US?
Tariffs are going to hit bad
Tealas are the most American made car multiple years running.
On the earnings call they said something like 85% of the parts also come from North America which is far greater than other OEMs.
Quite the opposite
https://eu.usatoday.com/story/money/2025/03/31/top-10-most-american-cars/82739892007/
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jimgorzelany/2023/06/21/all-four-tesla-models-are-ranked-as-the-most-american-vehicles-for-2023/
“All cars source at least some parts internationally, but some are more “American” than others. Cars.com’s American-Made Index ranks the “most American” cars and one brand has topped the list consistently for the last several years: Tesla.”
That is an actual suprise I would have assumed most of the tech was built overseas and shipped.
The story goes that when Tesla was new, no one wanted to work with them since new auto companies generally fail, and it was EVs at that. Additionally, there wasn’t a supply chain to support EVs either.
So in addition to setting up new supply chains (which did involve overseas stuff) they ended up making a lot of their own things, becoming very vertically integrated from the start. That learning to support themselves has persisted ever since.
They were always pretty focused on keeping the supply chain as local as possible as that reduces all the shipping costs. There are actually parts you could buy overseas for $X but when you look at the life cycle of that object it’s actually gone around the world many times before it becomes what you want. You can save a lot of money if you find a way to avoid that. That could for example involve finding a raw material company locally, and then convincing a local manufacturing company to build this new thing for you using raw materials from the other local company. It’s not simply oh we just find someone already making this existing thing in USA instead of China (but it can be that too), it’s actually putting the supply chain and manufacturing capacity together so it becomes local.
It’s probably one of the biggest reasons why they make more money on their EVs than others.
They’ve literally built a lithium refining facility as an example of the level of vertical integration they have. They plan to extract their own lithium in the future (they own land in Nevada with it), refine it themselves (this year), they build their own cathode, and put it into their own battery cells.
I’m sure Tesla will make the governments tariff exempt list
All vehicles sold in North America are assembled in Fremont CA or Austin TX. But they still pay tariffs on components they import.
That market is tanking hard, too