Camry Is Cars.com American-Made Champ

When it comes to sedans in the U.S., the Toyota Camry has pretty much become synonymous with the word sedan: it has been the best-selling car in the U.S. for 14 years running, and the delta between it and second place is generally non-trivial.

That is, in 2015 there were 429,355 Camrys sold in the U.S. The second-place car came in with 363,332 units, or a difference of 66,023 cars, which is nearly the total number of Chevrolet Sonics sold in the U.S. in 2015 (64,775). That second-place car, incidentally, is the Toyota Corolla.  Seems that those Toyotas are awfully popular in the U.S. market, to understate the case profoundly.

Whether the Camry will hit 15 in a row in terms of sales leadership has months to be determined (through may there were 167,199 delivered, so it is on track to do so), today it was announced that it has achieved the top spot in the Cars.com American-Made Index.

The Camry was also #1 on the 2015 Cars.com American-Made Index, which takes to account various parameters including sourcing of parts, sales, and number of U.S. employees supported by the production of the vehicles.

Notably, the Camry is built at Toyota Motor Manufacturing, Kentucky (TMMK) in Georgetown—which, according to Toyota, is its largest single vehicle manufacturing plant in the world. TMMK has a capacity to build 550,000 vehicles and 600,000 engines each year.

In addition to the Camry and Camry Hybrid, the Avalon and Avalon Hybrid are built at TMMK, as is the Lexus ES 350.

Also coming out of Georgetown are axles, steering components, engine blocks, cylinder heads, crankshafts, camshafts, connecting rods, and axle assemblies.

Toyota has four other vehicle assembly plants in the U.S., as well as four other components manufacturing facilities.

Of the approximately 35,000 direct employees that Toyota has in the U.S. some 70% are involved in manufacturing operations.

“This recognition from Cars.com is a tribute to Toyota employees, not only those at the plant who build the Camry, but the broader Toyota team who design, engineer, market and finance the vehicle in the United States,” said Bob Carter, Toyota senior vice president of automotive operations.

And speaking of the engineers: the chief engineer for the Camry is an American, Monte Kaehr.