A year ago, on this very site, we reported that all our previous EV sales articles for Mexico were wrong, and that we had been underestimating numbers for as long as we had been reporting on them. That was the last report on Mexican sales we did, and the matter of wrongful data wasn’t touched on again. The fact that Mexico’s Statistics Institute was providing such erroneous data is grave enough on its own, but as time has passed, we have learned quite a bit more details on the mess that is Mexico’s official data, and on the hard work of a brave, small association without which Mexico’s EV sector would be flying blind. Without this organization, we would have no idea what’s going on in the country So stay for the ride! As we will see, things are a bit more complex than they seem. INEGI’s failures Originally, we sourced Mexico’s data from Mexico’s Statistics and Geography Institute — INEGI — which we reasonably expected to be accurate. Though, we later learnt it wasn’t. INEGI’s data is based on the Automotive Industry Administrative Registry of Light Vehicles (RAIAVL) which, in turn, uses data from Mexico’s Automotive Industry Association (AMIA) to present, in their words, information “on every one of the 43 brands producing and/or commercializing vehicles in Mexico.” Alas, once one looks at the fine print, it turns out several EV champions, including BYD and Tesla, are missing from this list of 43 brands, meaning that — unsurprisingly — the totals can end up being quite incomplete. The issue here is that the AMIA, for reasons we cannot quite determine, has not been welcoming enough to convince these EV brands to join it, nor has it found the means to get accurate, up-to-date data without them joining. Back when EV sales were a fraction of a fraction, this had little relevance, but as sales increase and the country moves towards zero-emission transportation, official numbers have become progressively less reliable. All of these problems stem from the same fundamental source: unlike other countries, the Mexican government does not provide official statistics based upon registry numbers or import data. Instead, a private association is in charge of doing Mexico’s most important duty vis-à-vis transport statistics … and it’s doing it wrong. AMIA: an association for the 20th Century AMIA was founded in 1951, and by collecting information from all automotive companies in the country, the association gained relevance and became a fundamental cog in the Mexican information system. Given the de-centralized nature of Mexico’s political system, keeping track of vehicle sales inside the country in the mid 20th century was difficult: registrations would have to be provided by all states, and import data would naturally not be complete due to significant local production. Even production data would miss the mark, as a lot of vehicles would be exported to the US and other countries. In this context, AMIA’s voluntary offer was extremely valuable, and provided the Mexican state with an easy way to solve the conundrum and access reliable information in short notice. However, as some of our readers may have noticed, we’re no longer in the 20th century. Digitalization has reduced friction in information flow to zero, and the disruption in the vehicle market by EV brands has eroded AMIA’s grip on the reality of the Mexican automotive market. Newer, better solutions are available to countries, and in Latin America, many governments with far fewer resources than Mexico provide comprehensive, accurate data on a monthly basis, either directly or by relying on private organizations that manage and publish public registries. But not all is lost. While AMIA has faltered and the mighty Mexican government has failed, a small, brave organization has stepped up to let us know what’s really going on: if not for them, we all would be flying blind. Allow me to introduce you to the Electro-Mobility Association, or EMA. EMA: doing the work the government won’t. This small organization (with only 3 people) realized the problems we mentioned above early on: Mexico’s official registry was missing the most important EV brands, and as a result, was underreporting EV sales by a significant margin. But their understanding went beyond that. They realized that the issues plaguing INEGI’s data were not casual: AMIA’s interests, after all, lie with Legacy Auto, and traditional car companies realize as well as we do the existential danger that EV brands from China (and Tesla) represent for them. And in this context, it’s only natural that EV sales would be downplayed by traditional manufacturers. At first, there was probably at least a plausible argument: with sales below 1%, did it really matter if they were not reported accurately? Yet, as EV sales have risen, the lack of transparency in AMIA’s reports has served to downplay the speed of this transition and to convince Mexican legislators that EVs are just a small fad, and that it’s better to focus on the old and trusted combustion technology of yore. Another important factor could be individual: industry leaders could lose bonuses or even their jobs if official data reported that they’re losing market share, very fast, to a technology that only two years ago many of them considered worthless. Even worse, because AMIA’s information is “official,” and because it’s presented in Mexico’s Statistics Institute INEGI, this incomplete data ends up being reported in most — if not all — regional and international reports, including the one from Latin America’s Automotive Distributors Association (ALADDA). Given the need for real information, EMA started to do its own research. It contacted every single company selling EVs in the country, as well as charging and services providers for EV fleets, and got a significant number of them — 24 — to collaborate, providing direct information on the developments of the market. EMA then processes this information and provides it to us in quarterly reports, which are less detailed than we would like, but, hey, they’ve got to make money somehow. However, this small organization goes beyond only providing data. It has built an action plan to bring cleaner air to Mexican cities — based upon EV adoption — and it has presented routes for better charging infrastructure, better economic integration of e-mobility in Mexico’s industrial sector, and better regulations for EVs in the country. Its commitment to the transition to zero-emission mobility is laudable. And yet, the main objective of the organization is … to become irrelevant. EMA’s mission is to promote EV adoption in Mexico, and a large part of this can only happen if the government gets its act together. However, once INEGI starts making reports with a basis in reality, EMA’s report and the data the organization collects will become much less valuable, and the organization could risk losing a lot of its relevance. Ever since we found these discrepancies here at CleanTechnica, we have been reporting data on Mexico exclusively from EMA, which is the reason why our Latin American report is quarterly and not monthly (like our Europe, China, and World EV reports are), and also why our report (and ZEMO’s) is the most accurate one you’ll find out there. And even if we would love to have more detailed information, we thank EMA for doing God’s work and making sure that a country as important as Mexico is not absent from global EV reports. May this serve as a reminder of how a very small number of committed people can make a huge difference for a country and a region. Hopefully, the Mexican government will eventually step up.