Several Mexican states are falling over each other to try and court Tesla as the electric vehicle (EV) pioneer is rumoured to announce the country as the location of its next Gigafactory, according to a report from The Associated Press.
While Tesla hasn’t officially confirmed plans to build a factory in Mexico, the company has previously teased the announcement of its next Gigafactory and a Mexican official said earlier this month that a deal with Tesla was “very close.”
What’s more, officials have also said that Tesla CEO Elon Musk is due to have a phone call with Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador soon. A manufacturing facility in Mexico would build on Tesla’s existing relationship with the country’s government, which has granted the company an exclusive customs lane at the Mexico-U.S. border.
A previous report indicated that Tesla plans to put down an assembly plant near an airport in Mexico City, but that’s merely speculation at this point. As such, several states are fighting to win Tesla’s investment, which for all they know might not even end up being an automotive plant.
Some of the warring states include Veracruz, the northern industrial state of Nuevo Leon, and the western state of Michoacan.
Nuevo Leon painted the Tesla logo on a lane at the Colombia border crossing into Texas last summer, and even put up billboards that read “Welcome Tesla” in the state capital of Monterrey in December. What’s more, the state governor’s influencer wife, Mariana Rodriguez, was spotted at a get-together with Musk.
However, President Obrador seemingly disqualified the state from contention earlier this week, stating that the typically high water usage of factories could risk shortages there.
This resulted in other states ramping up their efforts to invite Tesla, leading to some rather humorous antics that included an ad shared by Michoacan Governor Alfredo Ramírez Bedolla that featured a Tesla vehicle next to a car-sized avocado.
We’re going to have to see exactly what Tesla plans to do in Mexico, but Bedolla noted that “wherever Tesla sets up, it is going to be big news in Mexico.”
