Mexico's car plants and showrooms since 2005: output up 146%, home sales up 35%
INEGI's register shows Mexico's plants made 3.95 million light vehicles in 2025, against 1.61 million in 2005, while new-vehicle sales at home rose from 1.13 million to 1.53 million. Mexico now builds about 2.6 vehicles for each new one it sells.
Dealers in Mexico sold 1.29 million new light vehicles from Jan to Oct 2026, a preliminary count and the most for those months in INEGI's record, which starts in 2005. Our sister site covers the month; here, it's set against twenty years of what Mexico makes and what it buys.
Two lines that parted
INEGI's register of the light-vehicle industry starts in 2005. That year, plants in Mexico made 1,606,460 cars, SUVs and light trucks, and 1,131,768 new ones were sold at home: about 1.4 made for each one sold. By 2025, production had reached 3,954,349 and domestic sales 1,532,448, about 2.6 to one. Output grew 146% over the twenty years and home sales 35%, by our arithmetic.
Exports explain the gap. They rose from 1,186,346 vehicles in 2005 to 3,385,785 in 2025, nearly three times as many, by our arithmetic. From Jan to Sep 2026, 76.4% of the light vehicles Mexico exported went to the USA and 12.4% to Canada, according to INEGI.
← Slide the chart to see the earlier years
Millions of units a year. Production: 2005 1.61; 2010 2.26; 2015 3.40; 2020 3.04; 2025 3.95. Exports: 1.19; 1.86; 2.76; 2.68; 3.39. New-vehicle sales in Mexico: 1.13; 0.82; 1.35; 0.95; 1.53. INEGI, RAIAVL.
Two collapses and a slow return
The home market fell hard twice. In 2009, with the global financial crisis, sales dropped to 754,925, 26.4% below 2008, by our arithmetic. In 2020, the pandemic took them to 950,063. In between, they reached the series' high of 1,607,165 in 2016. Sales in 2025 were still 4.6% short of that year, by our arithmetic, though the first ten months of 2026 already run ahead of the same months of 2016.
Production had its own breaks, 1,507,527 vehicles in 2009 and 3,040,178 in 2020, and recovered after both. Its high so far is 3,990,951 in 2024.
The two recoveries after 2009 ran at very different speeds. Production passed its 2008 level of 2,102,801 vehicles in 2010, one year after the crisis. Home sales didn't get back above their 2005 level until 2014, when 1,136,965 new vehicles were sold, five years after the fall. The pattern suggests the plants had buyers abroad to return to, while the showrooms waited on Mexican households and credit.
Older than the register
Carmaking in Mexico predates these figures by eight decades. Ford began manufacturing in the country in 1925, and in the early 1960s government rules required carmakers to assemble in Mexico, with local and imported parts, a push for a national industry that led several brands to leave, according to Wikipedia's account. The last twenty years added scale. The record suggests the plants are built for the North American market: new-vehicle sales at home, which include imported models, equal a little under 40% of what the plants make, by our arithmetic.
Sources
- INEGI, light vehicles: sales, production and exports, 2005-2026 (RAIAVL table); annual totals summed by us, 2026-11-05. Link
- INEGI, RAIAVL sales advance, October 2026 (bulletin 680/26), 2026-11-04. Link
- INEGI, RAIAVL report, September 2026, export destinations Jan-Sep (bulletin 618/26), 2026-10-07. Link
- Wikipedia, Automotive industry in Mexico (context: Ford 1925, the early-1960s rules), 2026-11-05. Link
- Wikipedia, Industria automotriz en México (context), 2026-11-05. Link
The same release, as this week's numbers, on our sister site: rutanamex.com/blog/new-vehicle-sales-mexico-october-2026.
Older: Mexico's working hours since 2005: about 400 a year more than in the USA