The Nano tried to be a household car but failed because a 6 person household (2 parents, 2 grandparents, 2 kids) would also need trunk space.
On the other hand, the Olina is trying to replace mototaxis and three-wheelers.
What other infrastructure do you have in mind?
Poor people need rail, busses, cars and the cheapest possible power. If the government does not provide the cartels are more then ready to do its job to placate the citizens.
Well: Energy is 54 % of the money. Which is mostly for the industry up north. Renewables are decorative in the percentage.
Rail: 15.63 % - again mostly for the norther industrial zone- and some link ups with the southern neighbours (under the guise of helping the backwards regions down there).
Roads: 13.94 % same though alot of it is also for tourism. But also logistics.
Ports: 7% Sofar its mostly a trade and industry support program- bluntly directed at becoming the usas new industrial heartland.
The problematic part is that most of this infrastructure is private loan based investment in partnership with the mexican goverment. US-companies will own significant parts of the infrastructure down there and thus have a handle on the government.
This is mostly a "re-industrialize" the us plan without having the problems with industr you have in the us.
[1] https://elceo.com/investigaciones-especiales/olinia-el-vincu...
It isn't meant to be a direct competitor of a Nissan Versa, Chevrolet Aveo, Nissan Frontier, or a Kia K3.
A better approach would have been adopting Malaysia's strategy of working on building a domestic battery platform [1], as the actual value add of an EV platform comes from the battery itself.
Also, the Olina Uno is very feature light (no AC, no air bags, little to no trunk space) despite costing around $8600 [2] despite Chinese, Indian [3], and Vietnamese [4] EV cars providing those features out of the box at the $7,000-9,000 pricepoint.
[0] - https://www.olinia.auto/
[1] - https://asia.nikkei.com/business/automobiles/electric-vehicl...
[2] - https://insideevs.com/news/798256/mexico-olinia-uno-ev-cheap...
[3] - https://asia.nikkei.com/business/automobiles/electric-vehicl...
[4] - https://asia.nikkei.com/business/automobiles/electric-vehicl...
In Mazatlan for example the most common taxi is called a pulmonia and only has a windshield and top cover but is gaz powered. This seems like a slightly longer version of the 4 seater pulomnia. I could totally see this being a great upgrade for a taxi driver there.
If I can purchase a used Nissan Versa for around $9000 and an Olina Uno for around $8500 and loan terms are roughly comparable, the used Nissan Versa would probably be the smarter purchase.
If financing for the Olina Uno cannot compete with financing for a used sedan, then I would assume that mototaxi owners would probably upgrade to a used sedan instead.
That is mostly untrue. I have only seen those in Mazatlan and other turisti destinations.
I think I noticed used cars the most, and honestly I don't think the economics of a three-wheeler makes sense in Mexico in 2026 compared to a used Nissan sedan.
Now days we have to ask if political movements are committed to democracy even before we ask if the lean left or right.
For example, We already had a Universal Basic Healthcare called Seguro Popular. Which was destroyed in 2018 by this regime on a tantrum which left millions without coverage. We went from 9% uncovered to 26% uncovered. They are still trying to figure out how to fix that.
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12639676/
The "Abrazos, no balazos" approach turned out to be the party colluding with organized crime to win elections.
https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2026/07/16/mexicans-...
https://www.as-coa.org/articles/approval-tracker-mexicos-pre...
If lifting 8.3 million Mexican people out of poverty is "populism" then maybe we need more of that.
And I don't think the corruption claim is warranted. Her "Abrazos, no balazos" ("hugs, not guns") approach to dealing with gangs is taken as evidence of her being in cahoots with them but the data shows that it's clearly working. Homicides have dropped by almost half from a year ago! And other crimes have followed the same trajectory.
https://www.gob.mx/sspc/prensa/estrategia-nacional-de-seguri...
https://www.nlc.org/resource/reimagining-public-safety-impac...
https://www.cnn.com/2016/05/19/health/cash-for-criminals-ric...
If this ploy works you'll see larger versions of this car hitting the roads which look suspiciously like Chinese BYD and SAIC EVs. All these will of course be exported North of the Border, courtesy of NAFTA.
I hope the government stops this attempt dead in its tracks before it starts to hurt our car industry.
The only way to stop the Chinese is to do it cold turkey: slap a huge import tariff on their wares and at the same time cutting off al avenues to work around it.
There are plenty of options for Western manufacturers to make their wares. Indonesia, Philippines, Cambodia would all be more than happy to do business. But Western companies have simply become lazy and are no more than marketing organizations these days which sell Chinese made wares under their own label.
Isn't a lot of the Mexican car industry foreign brands building their cars in Mexico with parts from wherever they come from? Lots of parts would be sourced in Mexico, but certainly not everything.
If you can get a high volume car assembled in your country, that's a win. Some, but not all of the parts production will move towards where assembly happens, because it simplifies logistics. That's a win too.
Would it be a bigger win for everything to be designed and made in your country? Yeah, probably, but it's not likely to happen, so take what you can get?
America has no leverage at this time ban Mexico/China if you want only Americans will be hurt in the crossfire.
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2026/jun/10/china-byd-c...
> I hope the government stops this attempt dead in its tracks before it starts to hurt our car industry.
There is literally nothing the US gov can do to stop this. On the contrary, their actions have accelerated this. Masterful gambit.
https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/seekin...
https://financialpost.com/commodities/energy/electric-vehicl...
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2026-07-15/china-... | https://archive.today/CXhGr
The US killed its own auto industry by shielding it from Chinese competition and rolling back EV incentive policy, to protect its profits of large combustion SUVs and trucks.
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/15/magazine/electric-cars-am... | https://archive.today/sENe1
> “We’ve reached a genuinely existential moment,” Ezell told me. In a best-case scenario, Detroit manages to meet it by crafting a viable, long-term E.V. strategy while also servicing the still dependably lucrative existing market for ICE trucks. In the worst, it retreats onto what the economist Susan Helper calls a “shrinking island of ICE,” churning out outlandishly large trucks and not much else. At which point, the obsolescence of the mighty U.S. automobile industry — a sector once inextricably associated with American know-how and economic might — would be all but guaranteed. As Ford’s chief executive, Jim Farley, recently acknowledged in a statement that could apply to any member of the Big Three, “If we don’t put our chips on the right number and the right color, Ford could maybe not exist.”
The U.S. has already stated that none of these EVs can be exported to the continental U.S. NAFTA-be-damned. They may not even cross the border if some Congressmen have their way.
So it seems logical that the next Chinese ploy is to become a major shareholder in a so-called Mexican car manufacturer which is merely a front to export Chinese EVs to the U.S.
I predict we'll see large numbers of VinFast EVs (from Vietnam) being exported to the U.S. in the coming years. Vietnamese companies are mostly covertly owned and controlled by Chinese counterparts.
Canada originally imposed the 100% tariff against Chinese EVs in lockstep with the US to protect North American automakers. In return China retaliated with massive tariffs on Canadian agricultural products. Which, I mean, is 100% fair: The argument against Chinese cars -- the subsidized nonsense -- is farcical, and you could 100% claim that almost every American manufacturer is subsidized by the military, and of course companies like Tesla are basically welfare cases.
The leaders of great American capitalism sure hate capitalism.
Anyways, if the automakers aren't willing to stand up to the pedo for Canada -- which has been producing cars as long as the US has, and buys far more cars than it makes -- then we're happy to move on from them and let them die. Why endure agricultural tariffs and trade friction if it isn't our fight anymore?
It isn't "token resistance", it's playing our own trade game, for our own benefit, and Canada is going to be doing a lot more of it. I know how offensive this is to American exceptionalists who have a serious case of main character syndrome.
And as the Chinese automakers start setting up dealer and support networks, they can negotiate on increasing the quota, making it worth both of our interests.
It's actually funny that Greer, Trump's trade imbecile, recently moped and whined about Canada "globalizing". Gosh, why don't we just throw in with that criminal empire of bullies and fools?
"NAFTA-be-damned"
Foreign products imported into Canada were never covered under NAFTA, nor have we ever claimed the same. No one ever thought we could import Chinese cars and suddenly export them under NAFTA. We reduced prices and opened up competition with more options for the benefit of Canadians, saving us from being limited to a bunch of American dogshit.
Now the "you can't drive here on your vacation" is a hilarious bit of defensiveness by the corporate shill American politicians (every American politician is bought and owned, whether by fearful-of-competition automakers, Israel, military contractors, etc. An astonishingly corrupt, busted country), and honestly it's worth a laugh. Maybe they haven't noticed, but to most Canadians, realizing how far and how fast the US has collapsed, driving there is no bueno. That consequence is cosmically funny in how it just fully fails to read the room.
Fat chance.