(Mexico) Billionaire Elon Musk’s global electric vehicle champion Tesla will open a factory in Monterrey, northern Mexico, taking into account water shortages in the drought-stricken region, the Mexican president announced on Tuesday. Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador.
“This is going to mean a huge investment and lots and lots of jobs,” Lopez Obrador said, adding that the company would give more details from “tomorrow” on Wednesday, including on the issue of the management of the water in its manufacturing processes.
“There is a first commitment, which is that of using recycled water throughout the manufacturing process of electric cars,” he said.
“I want to thank Mr. Elon Musk because he was very respectful and very attentive. He understood the importance of taking into account the problem of water shortage, ”continued the nationalist left president, specifying that he had discussed twice with the CEO of Tesla.
Located just over 200 km from the border with the United States, Monterrey is one of the economic, financial and industrial engines of Mexico, a member country of the OECD.
In July 2022, local authorities had to ration water due to the almost total drying up of two of the three dams supplying Monterrey.
Third overseas factory
“In the sharing of water, we preferred companies to people”, had then lamented in an editorial the left-wing newspaper “La Jornada”, close to power, referring to this drought.
This will be Tesla’s third factory overseas and the first in Latin America.
Elon Musk’s company already has a “gigafactory” in Germany, near Berlin, and another in China, in Shanghai. In Germany, Tesla produces batteries for cars.
At the beginning of February, the German company BMW announced an investment of 870 million dollars to manufacture electric cars in Mexico.
Mexico has lithium reserves in the state of Sonora (north) on the border with the United States.
The Mexican president signed a decree on February 18 nationalizing the production of lithium – considered “property of the Nation” – “so that foreigners cannot exploit it, neither Russia, nor China, nor the United States. “, he said during the signing of the decree.
Mexico is the world’s seventh-largest automobile producer with three million vehicles manufactured in 2021, according to the Mexican Automotive Industry Association (AMIA).
The German groups Volkswagen and Audi, American General Motors and Ford, and Japanese Honda, Nissan and Toyota have vehicle or engine manufacturing units in the country which is a hub of connection between North America and America. Latin.
The South Korean Hyundai and Stellantis (group born from the merger in 2021 of Peugeot-Citroën and Fiat-Chrysler) also have production units in Mexico.
Foreign investment in the automotive sector accounted for $5.3 billion in 2021, according to AMIA. The automotive industry accounted for 3.5% of GDP and 930,000 jobs that year, from the same source.
In 2022, foreign direct investment in Mexico amounted to $35.3 billion, up 12% from the previous year, the economy ministry said.
The United States is by far the largest investor in Mexico ($16 billion) ahead of Canada ($3.8 billion). All three countries are members of the North American Free Trade Agreement.
In 2021, Mexico was among the ten countries in the world receiving the most foreign investment, according to the investment company BlackRock.