Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador announced Tuesday that American electric vehicle maker Tesla would open a factory in Monterrey, an industrial powerhouse in northern Mexico hit by a severe drought in 2022.
• Also read: Tesla is suspending the introduction of driver assistance software
• Also read: An American arrested in his Tesla at 182 km/h in the Laurentians
“It’s going to be a huge investment and lots and lots of jobs,” Lopez Obrador said, adding that the company will announce more details, including how it will deal with water shortages, starting “tomorrow” on Wednesday.
“There is a first commitment, which is to use recycled water throughout the electric car manufacturing process,” he said.
“I want to thank Mr. Elon Musk because he was very respectful and very thoughtful. He understood the importance of addressing the issue of water scarcity,” continued the president of the nationalist left, specifying that he had spoken twice to the Tesla CEO.
Local authorities in Monterrey had to ration water in July 2022 because two of the three dams that supply the city, 200 km from the US border, almost dried up.
This will be Tesla’s third overseas factory and first in Latin America.
Elon Musk’s company already has a mega-factory in Germany, near Berlin, and another in China, in Shanghai. Tesla produces batteries for cars in Germany.
In early February, German company BMW announced an $870 million investment to manufacture electric vehicles in Mexico.