In interview with ExpansionDelgado recounts that 14 months ago an electric mobility working group began working with the strategy that Foreign Minister Ebrard outlined in order to attract investments that would allow the country to move from an electric vehicle automotive industry and that the first approach of the secretary for the The issue of supplies triggered the first contacts.
“Fortunately we were able to provide support now that was personified and very direct support with them for their inclusion in what is the legislation, procedures, investment conditions in Mexico, the benefits of trade agreements and the agreements that Mexico has, 14 different ones in almost all regions of the world”, explains the undersecretary.
Given the offers from the federal government to install the Testla plant in another state, Delgado said that the CEO of Tesla came very quickly to fly over and review some of the proposed locations in Hidalgo, in Querétaro, Puebla, the State of Mexico and New Lion.
What aspects ended up convincing the businessman to invest in Mexico?
From my point of view, the main aspects that favored this decision were three, obviously they do a very intensive due diligence on how they can have the implementation of a Gig factory in any country, but for my taste, one has been due to the framework of free trade agreements. Because? Because they are importers of many parts, elements, raw materials from around the world to make their vehicles. And Mexico, with its wide range of treaties, since it has low tariffs and well-established trade lines. Second, also for export, because this factory is going to produce a million vehicles annually and some of them go to the Mexican market, but others will be exported to Latin American and European countries. And these trade agreements also favor that export. So, this framework and the free trade agreement with the United States, well, it is one of the most powerful reasons.
Second, and to Santa Catarina itself, since it is a place whose location from floor to floor with Austin, the one they have in Austin, Texas, is six hours by road. It is a fundamental and very good integration that these two plants are going to have, the dynamism of their supply chain is going to be greatly favored.
For the undersecretary, in addition to the network of free trade agreements that benefit Tesla, the location of Santa Caterina, which is six hours from its plant in Austin, Texas, a key incentive to choose Mexico was the talent of the engineers of the country, since those who work in Musk’s company were trained in Mexico.
“More or less half of the engineers who work at Tesla are engineers trained in Mexico. They highly value the professional level of Mexican engineering. The quality of these engineers caught their attention and also the fact that many of them even want to return to work in their country,” he explains.
Martha Delgado, the former collaborator of Marcelo Ebrard and who accompanied him on his time at the head of Government of the then Federal District as Secretary of the Environment, considers that the success of the negotiation is a sign that the secretary has known how to navigate in waters national and international and that the decision of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador to delegate economic promotion abroad to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs was not wrong.
Here is the interview with the undersecretary:
