Mexico City — Tesla’s CEO Elon Musk will hold a telephone conversation with Mexico’s President Andrés Manuel López Obrador about a potential investment for the construction of an electric car plant in Mexico, Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard said Friday.
Ebrard, interviewed following a meeting with the country’s Business Coordination Council (CCE), did not specify the date of the call, and declined to give details about the possible location of the Tesla plant in Mexico.
Questioned about the possible location, Ebrard said: “they [Tesla] are thinking about an ecosystem, in which states are those the suppliers, what kind of logistical and other services we will need, and what things we can produce in Mexico”.
Speculation on the location has centered on the northern border states of Nuevo León and Sonora, as well as the central states of Hidalgo, Mexico and Guanajuato, and the northern state of San Luis Potosí.
Ebrard added that Tesla’s planned ‘ecosystem’ is compatible with Mexico’s ideas regarding electromobility, and said that, during the visit to Mexico of Rohan Patel, Tesla’s director of business development, Patel said he was interested in participating in the government’s Plan Sonora Plan, which sets out plans to develop solar power generation in that state, and moving towards clean and much cheaper forms of electricity generation.
“For example, they produce photovoltaic cells, so they can also visualize that as another participation of theirs in this ecosystem that is also being created in Mexico,” Ebrad added.
Plan Sonora seeks to move Mexico towards meeting its ambitious new commitment to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 35% by 2030.
The Mexican foreign minister highlighted that Tesla is just one of the 400 companies on the waiting list to invest and set up in Mexico during this six-year term, which ends in 2024.
“I see a very positive scenario,” Ebrard said.
