The 2026 Cars.com American-Made Index got shorter this year. Nissan and INFINITI’s spot on it did not.
Six Nissan and INFINITI models earned placement on the index for the second consecutive year: the Nissan Altima, Frontier, Murano, Pathfinder, and Rogue, plus the INFINITI QX60. The list itself contracted from 99 vehicles in 2025 to 86 in 2026, a decline Cars.com attributes to tariff disruptions, vehicle discontinuations, and a sharp drop in electrified entries as the federal EV tax credit sunset in fall 2025 pulled several EV-heavy lineups off the qualifying threshold. Holding six spots on a smaller list is, by arithmetic, a stronger position than holding six on a larger one.
The index evaluates more than 400 model-year 2026 vehicles on final assembly location, the percentage of U.S. and Canadian parts content, and the number of U.S. manufacturing employees. Only 86 made the cut. Foreign automakers account for 65% of this year’s list; the Detroit Three hold roughly one-third. Nissan and INFINITI account for six of those 86.
All six models are assembled at plants in Tennessee and Mississippi. Pathfinder, Rogue, Murano, and the INFINITI QX60 come out of Smyrna, Tennessee, where Nissan has operated since 1983 and INFINITI since 1989. Altima and Frontier are built in Canton, Mississippi, where the Altima moved in 2004 and the Frontier in 2012. Engines for all six vehicles are built at Nissan’s powertrain facility in Decherd, Tennessee, which recently crossed 20 million engines assembled since opening in 1997. The three plants together employ more than 11,000 workers and represent $14.9 billion in cumulative investment.
The Frontier carries particular weight in the manufacturing story right now. Canton assembled more than 65,000 Frontier trucks in 2025, and earlier this month the plant celebrated the one-millionth Frontier assembled in Mississippi. Counting production that began in Smyrna in 1998 before the Canton transfer, Nissan has built more than two million Frontiers in the United States. That’s a long tenure for a midsize truck that still doesn’t get the cultural shorthand of its domestic-brand competitors.
Smyrna is also preparing for expansion. The plant recently began production of the all-new INFINITI QX65, a new nameplate requiring investment in training, tooling, and assembly processes for a model positioned at the upper end of the INFINITI lineup. The QX65 isn’t yet on the American-Made Index, having just entered production, but its Smyrna address sets it up for future consideration under the same criteria that qualified the QX60.
The broader localization numbers give context to what Nissan is trying to accomplish. U.S.-localized production represented 44% of Nissan’s footprint at one point and reached 65% in fiscal year 2025. The company’s stated target is 80%. David Johnson, Nissan Americas’ regional senior vice president for manufacturing, framed the index recognition as consistent with that trajectory: building vehicles where they are sold, rather than importing into tariff exposure.
The 2026 index was a harder list to make than last year’s. An overall shrinkage of 13 vehicles, a near-halving of EV entries, and tariff pressure on parts sourcing all raised the effective threshold. Nissan and INFINITI placed the same six models as in 2025 and came out with a proportionally larger share of a tighter list. For a company working toward an 80% domestic production target, that’s the direction the numbers are supposed to move.
Source: Infiniti. Images courtesy of Infiniti.
