The biggest EV story of 2026 is the explosive pace of EV adoption in the countries auto analysts tend to call “Rest of World.” From Africa to Asia to Latin America, drivers are increasingly choosing EVs. However, the vast majority of the EVs (along with a lot of gas-burners) are made in China.
In Mexico, some 20% of the cars sold in 2025 were made in China. Now Mexico, which has long been a center for offshore vehicle manufacturing, has taken a step towards developing its own auto industry.
Olinia, Mexico’s first homegrown electric vehicle, was designed and built by a consortium of national technological institutes and research centers (with a little help from the Chinese embassy, as Electrek’s Peter Johnson reports).
“We were told that innovation was reserved for other places, that Mexico was only made for assembly plants, that our role was to receive technology, not develop it. To receive ideas, not create them. But that is false,” President Claudia Sheinbaum said at a recent ceremony to introduce the new EV.
Olinia’s performance specs are in line with what we would call a “low-speed” or “neighborhood” EV—62 miles of range and a 31 mph maximum speed—but it is designed to be an affordable city car that can compete with Chinese EVs such as the BYD Dolphin Mini, which is popular in the Mexican market.
Olinia sports six seats, and can accommodate a wheelchair. It has a 14.7 kWh LFP battery and a single 13.5 kW electric motor. It’s scheduled to go on sale in 2027, with a starting price tag under $9,000. At the launch ceremony, Sheinbaum said the new EV’s fuel cost is expected to be half that of a motorcycle, and a small fraction of that of a small gas-burning car.
Source: Electrek
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