How do sales of cars and trucks in Mexico compare to sales in the U.S.? In fact, how many cars are made in Mexico? Don't they make a lot of cars there that are imported into the U.S.? Well, let's see... You may be surprised, just as I was. In general, there are a lot less cars and trucks made there than I thought, and there are a lot less sold there than I thought.

Looking at numbers provided by the Mexican Automotive Industry Association as published by Automotive News, we can see that there were 142,814 cars and trucks made in Mexico in January of this year. Of those made there, 45,197 were purchased there. There were 97,674 cars and trucks purchased in Mexico in January, so that means that 52,477 were imported. So that means that Mexicans bought more imported cars than domestically-produced cars and trucks. They did export 97,617 cars and trucks, so they exported just about as many cars and trucks as they bought.

Note that in this discussion that the definition of "truck" is the same as it is here. That means that vehicles like a Chrysler PT Cruiser or Ford Fusion is a "truck" not a car.

What cars and trucks did Mexicans buy? Here is the table from Automotive News:

Mexico Car and Truck Sales
	January 2007	January 2006
BMW total	801	806
car	591	624
truck	210	182
DaimlerChrysler total	10,466	10,455
Chrysler car	4263	4743
Chrysler truck	5670	5052
Mercedes car	305	337
Mercedes truck	197	280
Smart car	31	43
Ferrari total	1	2
Fiat total	256	1
Ford total	15,907	16,236
Ford car	4976	6074
Ford truck	10,673	9865
Jaguar car	12	24
Land Rover truck	58	66
Volvo car	164	139
Volvo truck	74	68
General Motors total	21,636	22,415
car	14,396	15,022
truck	7240	7393
Honda total	4286	3853
car	1732	2333
truck	2554	1520
Mazda total	1100	402
car	763	355
truck	337	47
Mitsubishi total	1478	1483
car	602	552
truck	876	931
Nissan total	19,261	18,517
car	12,944	11,937
truck	6317	6580
Peugeot total	1405	1620
car	1225	1355
truck	180	265
Porsche total	45	50
car	39	23
truck	6	27
Renault total	1526	1893
Subaru total	44	none
Suzuki total	448	289
car	143	117
truck	305	172
Toyota total	4357	4070
car	2554	1527
truck	1803	2543
Volkswagen total	14,657	14,481
car	13,464	13,711
truck	1193	770
Total cars	59,774	60,661
Total trucks	37,900	35,912
Total Mexico sales	97,674	96,573

Compare these numbers to the total sales of cars alone in the U.S. in January of 508,011. We bought 160,291 imported cars old and bought 347,720 domestically-produced cars. Perhaps an interesting way of presenting this data is that there were 0.00909 cars purchased per person in Mexico in January. There were 0.01702 cars purchased per person in the United States. This data is from population numbers from 2006.

It is interesting that the big sellers of cars and trucks in Mexico are GM, Nissan, Ford, Volkswagen, and DaimlerChrysler -- with GM pretty far ahead of the others. Nissan has not only a bit vehicle production presence in Mexico, but also sells significantly more cars and trucks than both Honda and Toyota. While the Mexican market is small now, don't count on that lasting too long.

Strong demand for light trucks caused a total vehicle sales increase in Mexico of 1.1 percent over January 2006. And the Japanese automakers showed the best results with Nissan getting a 4.0 percent sales increase, moving significantly closer to GM who had a 3.5 percent decrease. Ford was down some 2.0 percent. Toyota sales increased some 7.1 percent and Honda's increase was 11.2 percent. Does this sound like the situation in the United States -- but in miniature? It sure does to me.

Ferrari did sell one car in Mexico in January, but sold 2 last year in January. Wow, was that ever a sales decrease if you look at the percentage. There are no numbers for Lamborghini, so I assume they sold no cars in Mexico, though Audi and Bentley are also missing from the list. Those numbers could be folded into the numbers for Volkswagen cars.

The cars and trucks produced in Mexico are a bit different than what Mexicans buy. Here is that table from Automotive News:

Mexico Car and Truck Production
	January 2007	January 2006
DaimlerChrysler total	14,187	23,990
Mexico car	163	248
Export car	11,973	11,196
Total car	12,136	11,444
Mexico truck	165	432
Export truck	1886	12,114
Total truck	305	337
Ford total	23,073	23,836
Mexico car	1219	929
Export car	17,690	20,468
Total car	18,909	21,397
Mexico truck	3648	2314
Export truck	516	125
Total truck	4164	2439
General Motors total	25,251	39,328
Mexico car	5230	5952
Export car	6548	8395
Total car	11,778	14,347
Mexico truck	1891	2527
Export truck	11,582	22,454
Total truck	13,473	24,981
Honda total	2130	2165
Mexico car	675	925
Export car	1455	1240
International export truck	1236	1286
Nissan total	47,367	31,812
Mexico car	15,122	13,638
Export car	27,705	13,905
Total car	42,827	27,543
Mexico truck	4201	3861
Export truck	339	408
Total truck	4540	4269
Renault Mexico car	596	581
Toyota export truck	2457	2970
Volkswagen total	19,088	33,146
Mexico car	4708	5751
Export car	14,230	27,288
Total car	18,938	33,039
Mexico truck	150	107
Total truck	150	107
Other Mexico truck (est.)	7429	5867
Mexico car	27,713	28,024
Export car	79,601	82,492
Total car	107,314	110,516
Mexico truck	17,484	15,108
Export truck	18,016	39,357
Total truck	35,500	54,465
Total Mexico sales	142,814	164,981

More cars domestically-produced in Mexico are exported than are purchased in Mexico, but the numbers for trucks are nearly the same. It should be of some concern, however, that production of vehicles was really down in January, compared to last year -- some 15.5 percent. A big chunk of that was DamilerChrysler (read Dodge) truck production going from 12,546 to just 2051. Also Ford and GM truck production was down by about 50%.

Not only does Nissan sell a lot of cars (second to GM) in Mexico, but it makes significantly more cars than any other producer in Mexico. The top selling car or truck in Mexico is the Nissan Tsuru, which is an old Sentra. I found it odd the last time I was in Mexico that some of them were labeled Sentra, but most were labeled Tsuru. I couldn't get an explanation of what the difference was. Maybe it was just some owners changing the label, or perhaps it was some owners bringing cars from the U.S.

Only GM made about the same number of cars as trucks in Mexico in January. Well, I should make an exception for Toyota, because they made only trucks and all were exported here. Nissan made almost ten times as many cars as trucks, and exported very few of the trucks they did make. Volkswagen makes almost no "trucks" in Mexico, yet offers for sale trucks from a Touareg to a cab for a semi-trailer. Those really big trucks aren't included in the table. VW also offers bus chassis for sale in Mexico, but not here.

The most interesting vehicle to me available and made in Mexico is their little pickups. If you can remember the distant past when Volkswagen offered a Rabbit pickup here in the early 1980s. This is a unit-bodied trucklet that sold well enough that Dodge built their own, called the Rampage. In any case, this little truck has persevered in Mexico and versions are built by Ford, "Chevy", and Volkswagen. I'm going to Mexico soon, and I'll bring back some pictures of these cute little trucks. I think there really is a market for such a truck here.