After being snubbed by Tesla, Mexico’s new president on Friday pledged to create an affordable, Mexican-made small car Electric car To compete with cars imported from China.
President Claudia Sheinbaum He said Tesla cars were “cumbersome” or too expensive for the Mexican market anyway. Tesla’s cheapest car, the Model 3, costs about $30,000.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk said in July that the company had “paused” its plans to set up a factory in Mexico, citing Donald Trump’s comments about potential tariffs on cars.
Sheinbaum said her government will try to bring Mexican companies and researchers together to produce a “compact and affordable electric vehicle.”
“The idea is to use Mexican companies and the ingenuity of Mexican researchers to bring them together to put together this electric car,” Sheinbaum said. “The idea is to create production chains so that this electric vehicle is completely manufactured in our country.”
She cited electric cars from China and India – and some It’s already flowing into Mexico – As examples. Small electric motorcycles from China have flooded Mexico’s streets in recent months, but Sheinbaum said the motorcycles, which in Mexico are often ridden by three people at a time, are extremely dangerous.
The plan faces a number of problems, including the fact that… Mexico does not produce any lithium, The main component of batteries, nor any large quantity of batteries. High local electricity prices may also be an obstacle.
There are some clay-covered lithium deposits in northern Mexico, which the government nationalized under the last administration. However, Sheinbaum said that lithium mining techniques are not currently commercially viable, and production from those sources is “a little longer term.”
Anyone seeking to charge a battery at home could face expensive bills. Mexico subsidizes domestic energy consumption at a low level of about 10 cents per kilowatt hour, which is slightly lower than the U.S. average.
But a much higher rate applies for any electricity consumption above the minimum level, which is basically enough to power a dozen light bulbs, a washing machine and a refrigerator.
Moreover, Mexico’s crumbling power lines and transportation facilities are barely able to keep up with current demand, let alone charge car batteries at home on a large scale.
Sheinbaum did not say what selling price Mexico is targeting for its tiny electric car, but that could be another issue.
Some Mexican discount stores offer a small Chinese mail-order electric car for about $1,000. It will be very difficult for Mexican manufacturers to compete with this price at the level of motorcycles.
Mexico was affected after Tesla postponed its plans to build a gigafactory in the northern border state of Nuevo Leon earlier this year. It was the promise of the factory It sparked intense competition among Mexican rulers to acquire the facility.
“I think we need to see where things stand after the election,” Musk said in July. Trump said he would impose heavy tariffs on cars produced in Mexico. So it doesn’t make sense to invest a lot in Mexico if that’s the case.
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