Tesla will build a new factory in Mexico
- After the factory in Fremont (USA), Shanghai (China), Austin (USA) and Berlin (Europe), the Californian electric car carmaker Tesla will open a new factory in Mexico. This will be the fifth Tesla car production site, the third located outside the United States and the first located in Latin America.
- This factory will be located in Monterrey in northern Mexico, 200 kilometres from the border with the United States. It will make it possible to supply the US and Canadian markets as well as Mexican and the South American markets if these markets succeed to develop their EV markets.
- For the time being, no year production launch announcement has been made, but it has been announced that new generation vehicles will be produced there.Tesla is aiming to produce 20 million cars per year in 2030 (twice as much production as Toyota today and comparable to current production in China). This therefore assumes a sales growth of 50% per year from today to this horizon and the construction of 10 to 12 additional factories according to Elon Musk, founder and boss of Tesla. Interestingly, Tesla does not expect to increase dramatically the number of models variants to achieve this volume target.
- The choice of Mexico is timely: the electric cars that will be produced there and delivered to the United States will benefit from the subsidies granted by the Amercian Administration within the framework of the IRA (Inflation Reduction Act) intended to encourage the production of electric cars in North America. All carmakers established in the country have benefited for many years from a free trade agreement with the United States, as members of NAFTA. In addition, Mexico has large potential of lithium capacities in the north of the country, which is critical for the production of batteries.