We had a Tesla Model X in California. Sometimes the falcon doors wouldn’t open even if there was nobody around (I guess the heat makes it wonky? SoCal can get hot, ya know). Our battery died TWICE (the starter battery, and the motor batteries, which left us stranded in parking lots much too often). So my parents were happy to sell it once we moved to Querétaro and bought ourselves a 2022 Kia Seltos instead (we never really noticed them in the USA, but we see a bunch of Seltos in Mexico. It’s a nice car! Review coming soon!)
And there’s a LOT of different brands here. Much more than the US. I could give you a list of the top of my head of cars we saw a bunch of in Southern California: Lexus, Honda, Chevy, Ford, Tesla, Acura, Toyota, Dodge/Jeep, Porsche, BMW, Mercedes.
Here in Querétaro, Mexico, we BARELY see Lexus, Acura, or Porsche (even though there’s a Porsche dealership nearby). There ARE a lot of Audis & Volkswagen, but I guess Porsche is kinda pricey here. And it’s funny, the “honda bump” hashtag in America (when there’s a car accident, it usually involves a Honda because they are SO MANY of them. But they’re nice. My dad had a red turbo Civic that was cool, except the air conditioner didn’t work, so it didn’t cool. But there aren’t THAT many Civics here (more City, which is a smaller Civic) or Fit (which is a TINY Civic).
There’s also JAC, Chirey, Seat, Cupra, Peugeot, Renault, and other brands you never see in America.
But one car brand that is noticeably absent is Tesla, and we thought about importing our Tesla to QRO… but there’s barely any service centers. The history we had with our LEMON Model X made us very very wary of bringing it South. Could you imagine being stuck on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere in a foreign country with no service centers around? Mexico City is like 2 hours south of us… I can’t imagine the tow truck bills!
Maybe in ten more years there will be more Teslas or electric cars in the lesser known (but still massively populated) parts of Mexico (Oaxaca, Guadalajara, Monterrey, and our very own Querétaro). But for now, whenever we see a Tesla drive by or parked nearby, we don’t think about the car we used to drive & zoom past others… we think “how the heck are they gonna fix that thing once it goes bad?” Good luck, amigos 😊
