Mexico is undergoing a fevered competition among states to win a potential Tesla facility in jostling reminiscent of what happens among U.S. cities and states vying to win investments from tech companies.
Mexican governors have gone to loopy extremes, like putting up billboards, creating special car lanes or creating mock-ups of Tesla ads for their states.
And there’s no guarantee Tesla will build a full-fledged factory. Nothing is announced, and the frenzy is based mainly on Mexican officials saying Tesla boss Elon Musk will have an upcoming phone call with Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador.
The northern industrial state of Nuevo Leon seemed to have an early edge in the race.
It painted the Tesla logo on a lane at the Colombia border crossing into Texas last summer, and erecting billboards in December in the state capital, Monterrey, that read “Welcome Tesla.”
The state governor’s influencer wife, Mariana Rodriguez, was even shown in leaked photos at a get-together with Musk.
However, López Obrador appeared to exclude the semi-desert state from consideration Monday, arguing he wouldn’t allow the typically high water use of factories to risk prompting shortages there.
That set off a competitive scramble among other Mexican states, like feeding time at a piranha tank. The governors’ offers ranged from crafty proposals to near-comic ones.
“Veracruz is the only state with an excess of gas,” quipped Gov. Cuitláhuac García of the Gulf coast state of Veracruz, before quickly adding “gas … for industrial use, for industrial use!”
A late-comer to the race, García had to try harder: He noted Veracruz was home to Mexico’s only nuclear power plant. And he claimed Veracruz had 30% of Mexico’s water, though the National Water Commission puts the state’s share at around 11%. Water, it turns out, is thicker than blood.
The governor of the western state of Michoacan wasn’t going to be left out. Gov. Alfredo Ramírez Bedolla quickly posted a mocked-up ad for a Tesla car standing next to a huge, car-sized avocado — Michoacan’s most recognizable product — with the slogan “Michoacan — The Best Choice for Tesla.”
