Times are becoming increasingly difficult for the global electric car giant Tesla. After announcing a nearly $5 billion investment to build a factory in northern Mexico in March, the Elon Musk-led company is facing unexpected delays. This would affect the plan to launch the new model in 2025, putting the project “at risk,” according to an analysis by the Laboratory of Commercial, Economic and Business Analysis of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM).
According to Ignacio Martínez, academic researcher and head of the laboratory (known by the acronym LACEN), Tesla’s plans were influenced on two fronts. First, the construction of stormwater, road and rail infrastructure promised by Nuevo León Governor Samuel García has not yet begun and it is unknown where public resources will come from to finance it. Second, the environmental permits required to begin construction, which are issued at the local, state and federal levels, are taking longer than expected.
Given the presidential ambitions of García, whose party announced that it would present its candidate in January, Tesla set its sights on the federal budget presented by the Ministry of Finance on September 8th. Nuevo León turned out to be one of the favored states with an increase in planned spending of almost 2,000 million pesos, the second highest increase after the country’s capital. However, there is no budget item for the infrastructure projects promised to Tesla. “If investments are made in the next two months, before 2024, to put the infrastructure (the Tesla factory) into operation, it will bear fruit. If not, you are putting yourself at risk,” says Martínez.
García can secure resources from other industries or projects to finance this infrastructure, but he would have to do so soon. In March, Tesla announced that its new, cheaper model would be launched by 2025. If Tesla wanted the factory in Mexico to produce the new cars, construction of the stormwater, road and rail infrastructure would have to begin this year, Martínez calculates. This did not happen.
Tesla “must determine the production times of the good on the basis of this gigafactory in order to be able to compete in the new area of the automotive industry, in the new electric mobility program from 2025,” says Martínez, “the “infrastructure times.” in Nuevo León and permits do not run parallel to Tesla’s logistical times.”
On Thursday, Rohan Patel, director of business development at Tesla, indirectly responded to speculation that the company would not move forward with the project in Mexico. say on their social networks: “We will continue to work with local, state and federal governments and greatly appreciate their efforts to provide necessary permitting and sustainable infrastructure.”
The rumors were sparked not only by the apparent delay in construction, but also by a few paragraphs in Musk’s biography, published in September, in which the author assured that the businessman regretted the choice of Mexico, since it was impossible to achieve his to move engineers there. For their part, Tesla suppliers who had been asked to move to Santa Catarina were urgently informed that the opening of the plant would be delayed, according to the newspaper Reforma.
“What we have at the moment is an investment project, not a productive investment,” explains Martínez, “it is an announced project, not fixed,” and as such the company could still exit. To date, some owners of the plots that make up the site selected for the facility have already received payment for their land. Given the resources that Tesla has, with a market value of $820 billion, the company could incur a loss by partially purchasing the land without it posing a financial problem.
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