Mexico’S Vehicle Fleet Hits 36.1 Million

Mexico’s vehicle fleet just crossed a milestone that should make every aftermarket planner sit up: 36.1 million vehicles in operation. Stacey Miller sits down with Evaristo Garcia, Founder and CEO of IDF, to unpack the latest Mexico VIO data and what it means for the automotive aftermarket, distribution, and the North American supply chain.

They talk through where the growth is really coming from (light vehicles), and why Mexico’s average vehicle age stays high and steady at about 16.2 years. That long-lived fleet is shaped by strong new vehicle sales and by something uniquely important to Mexico’s market: used imports from the United States, often called “chocolates.” If you sell parts, service vehicles, or manage inventory across borders, this mix changes how you forecast demand and how wide your catalog needs to be.

Then they dig into the strategic shifts hiding inside the totals. Mexico is still a car-heavy market at roughly 56% of VIO, but trucks and SUVs keep gaining ground as global OEM strategies tilt away from sedans. We also explain IDF’s “modern segment” view: about 14 million vehicles from the last 10 model years, a huge opportunity for aftermarket businesses that want to win on newer applications without ignoring the long tail. Finally, they put Chinese automakers into perspective: more than 10% of new vehicle sales, yet only about 1.2% of the light-vehicle VIO today, alongside bigger penetration in medium and heavy trucks and real-world parts availability lessons.

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Transcript

Stacey Miller 0:13

Welcome to Autocare on Air, a candid podcast for Curious Industry. I'm Stacey Miller, Vice President of Communications at the Autocare Association. And this is Traction Control, where we chat about recent news from the global to the local level and what it may mean to the industry featuring guests on the front lines. Let's roll. Welcome back to another edition of Traction Control. I'm Stacy Miller, and I'm welcoming back to the studio my good friend Evaristo Garcia, founder and CEO of IDF. Welcome, Everisto.

SPEAKER_00 0:45

Hi, Stacy. Thank you for having me.

Record Mexico VIO Growth Numbers

Stacey Miller 0:47

Thank you so much for being here. I'm excited to talk to you again as one of our long-standing partners in the Latin American market. IDF provides an amazing amount of data for the automotive aftermarket. And of course, the Latin American market is a really important part of the North American supply chain. And what's really great about this conversation is we have some quick hits for our listeners today. And IDF just came out with some exclusive data on the Mexico VIO. And apparently we have some record fleet, excuse me, record fleet and strategic shifts that are happening in that market. So Evaristo, let's start off with the big one. What is growing and what are some of those key metrics?

Used US Imports And Fleet Age

SPEAKER_00 1:30

Well, yeah, no, you're right. I mean, we have record numbers. Uh the VIO at year end for 2025 in Mexico is now at 36.1 million units, which is uh a lot. I mean, uh 36.1 million units for Mexico. Uh, we never had that figure before. When you compare this number against you know 2024, now we are 1.1 million units ahead. Uh it was at 35 million units. So now uh that has grown by almost 3%, uh uh 2.8 uh percent growth for the whole thing, right? Uh but uh really light vehicles is what grew more, more than the medium and heavy trucks. The 36.1 million includes uh medium and heavy trucks as well, but that's really just 1.1 million units. And uh that almost grew very, very little, but uh the growth came from the light vehicles, that was uh 2.9%. So it's almost all the growth coming from the light vehicles.

Stacey Miller 2:42

Wow. And are these new or used vehicles entering the market or a mix of both?

SPEAKER_00 2:46

Well, that's a wonderful question. I mean, we can have a podcast just about that question. Um, Mexico has something very unique, which is the used imports, okay? Uh, which are also known as chocolates. It has a little bit of a negative connotation, uh, but it's used vehicles from the US. Imagine something that is in, you know, San Diego or somebody that is in El Paso, Texas, or something, and they drive their vehicle into Mexico, and they can sell it for a little bit more money than perhaps they would be able to sell it in the US. So there are used imports in Mexico, and that has been allowed now for several decades. Uh, they say it's changing, but we did have a few used imports in Mexico last year. Yeah. Wow, that's amazing. So the number includes the vehicles that were sold new in Mexico and also the used imports or chocolates, everything included. So thank you for that question. That's a great question.

Stacey Miller 3:44

Yeah, I mean, Mexico is such a unique market, right? Because the average age of those vehicles is much higher than those in the US. I think the the VIO in the US is approaching something like 13 years, but in Mexico, that's over 16 years.

SPEAKER_00 4:00

Yeah, yeah. No, you're almost perfect right there. It's uh 16.2 years, and that didn't change. And uh I think that's uh that's something very, very important. I mean, first of all, the vehicle age normally doesn't change a lot from one year to the other. You know, it's 16.2 year years right now. That's the same number it was a year ago. And you know, if you look at the last 10 years, maybe it went from 16.0 to 16.1 to 16.2. I mean, it changes a fraction on a yearly basis. But last year, there was almost a record of new vehicle sales at around 1.6 uh million new vehicles. That has helped, uh, and that that has also been similar high levels of new vehicles entering the market for the last five or six years. So that has helped to have a healthy amount of new vehicles, and that's keeping the average age pretty stable right now, which which is I mean, it's good. I mean, it's like an airplane that is going at you know 30,000 feet altitude and it's stable. Well, we have a very high average age at 16.2, but it's going stable. So uh I think that's uh pretty good.

Stacey Miller 5:21

I like a steady airplane, no turbulence. I'm okay with that.

SPEAKER_00 5:26

Yeah, it's a super high, as you say. It's much higher than the US. Absolutely.

Stacey Miller 5:30

What a great analogy. Um, you know, one of the things that I noticed about the VIO in Mexico was I think um the VIO in Mexico currently is more than Canada's, which also continues to reinforce how strong Mexico's position is in the North American aftermarket and why we have so many partners across this border, right?

Cars Versus Trucks In Mexico

SPEAKER_00 5:51

Yes, the the VIO in Mexico has been higher than Canada for at least the last 10 years. You know, I don't know the precise figure now that you mention it about the VIO in Canada. We would need to check the fact book or maybe ask uh Mike Chung about that. But I know it has been higher than Canada for probably about 10 years, something like that. Yes. Yeah.

Stacey Miller 6:13

And the the mix of the vehicles, you mentioned that light vehicles were driving the growth of the VIO in Mexico right now, but I think that the one of the figures that you published was that the mix of the vehicles is changing. So how is that changing? And why do you think that is? Yeah, no.

SPEAKER_00 6:30

Absolutely. I mean, Mexico, if you think about it, uh, is almost the the opposite of what happens in the US. In in the US, you have about 60 or 70 percent of the VIO is trucks, you know, whether it's pickup trucks or sport utilities, and then like 30% is the the cars, you know. I mean, many companies have stopped doing cars in the US. Uh in Mexico, cars are still very, very important. They're about, um, let me look at the numbers here, 56% of the VIO in Mexico. So, still, right now, cars are more than half of the VIO in Mexico. However, very similar as the US, the trucks, the pickup trucks, the sport utilities, they have gained a lot of uh popularity, traction in Mexico. So the Mexican market is becoming a truck market, but not yet. I mean, we we went from cars being 57% of the VIO a year ago, now they're 56%. So cars are going down very slowly, and trucks are going from 34% to 35%. So now trucks are a little bit more than uh a third of the market, okay? And um the rest is 6% is vans and 3% is the medium and heavy trucks.

Stacey Miller 7:59

Do you anticipate the market to continue skewing towards those trucks? Or why do you think that um are the trucks becoming more affordable? There's more need for work trucks, just like general opinion on that shift?

The Modern Vehicle Segment Opportunity

SPEAKER_00 8:12

No, I I think this is like a general global trend where some manufacturers say, as an example, Ford, right? Uh, I mean, Ford pretty much stopped producing any cars. They used to have the Ford Fiesta or the Ford Fusion or uh DeFord Focus, and they are now doing the Ford Escape or they're doing the Ford Explorer or whatever. They pretty much the only car they have, I think, is the Ford Mostang, you know, which in Mexico is not that popular. It's it's DeFord Mostang in Mexico is is kind of like an exotic car. So um many companies have changed their strategy into producing more uh sport utilities, even if there are very small sport utilities. Uh but that's I think the change. So it's not a change that is unique to Mexico. I guess Mexico just has been a slow adopter of these, and also cars were so dominant in Mexico, you know, 10 years ago, 20 years ago, 30 years ago, that just the VIO has so many cars in Mexico. So it will take a little bit, but I mean, we're already at 56% are cars. So probably in the next two or three years, maybe four years, it will be less than half of the vehicles will be cars in Mexico. Wow. Yeah.

Stacey Miller 9:38

That is incredibly interesting. I think one of the other things that kind of struck me in some of the data that you published was um you've kind of defined a new modern age segment of vehicles, right? Um in the US, we have the vehicles as soon as they leave the dealership. You know, that's the initial warrant warranty period, one to five years. And then you've got another period that we call kind of like the aftermarket sweet spot, that period right after the vehicles come out of warranty that you're maintaining them. And then you've got the long tail when they're over 12 years old and people are keeping them 12 to 16 years. And you've defined something called the modern segment uh age of or the modern segment of vehicles. Tell me a little bit about what that means in Mexico.

SPEAKER_00 10:22

Yeah, no, absolutely. I mean, we were talking about the average age, and one of the things we do uh when we are analyzing the average age is that we do four bars, you know. One bar is the last 10 years, like you know, model year 2016 to 2025, or you know, the next bar is the previous 10 years, and then the previous 10 years, and then as you say, all the vehicles that are like 31 years or older, right? And that bar sometimes shows things that are very, very telling. And in this case, we have just in the first bar that is uh 2016 to 2025, we have 14 million vehicles. That's uh 38 percent. So I mean almost 40 percent of the vehicles in Mexico now are on that first bar that is 14 million vehicles. I mean, that is a lot. So, yeah, of course, imagine the challenge of uh somebody that sells spare parts in Mexico when you tell them the average age is 16.2 years. So then, you know, people always talk about the shelf, you know. Oh, we we need to have this part on the shelf. Well, if you have vehicles that are 16 years of age on average, you need to have parts that are like 32 for a vehicle that is like 32 years old. Well, maybe you need a carburetor, or maybe you need like the very, very first types of fuel injectors or things like that, and you're gonna find different uh generations of ABS, you know, sensors or whatever. So the shelf on a store in Mexico needs to be pretty long. But the good news is the new vehicle sales have been so strong that you could do a business just with those 14 million vehicles, for example. 26 or 2025. Yeah. I mean, you could just say, well, I'm just going to specialize in the last 10 model years, for example. I mean, you talk about the dealers, once the car is like three or four years old, very few people take the car to the dealer in Mexico. I mean, it's the exact same challenges that we have here. So people just gravitate towards the aftermarket after three or four years.

Stacey Miller 12:42

That's a really interesting business opportunity to know that, okay, if you're stocked on the shelves the last 10 years, 2016 to 2025 or 2026, that's good. But you're still gonna have really great business opportunities if you're able to at least source those parts that are prior to 2026 because that VIO is so old, too. But that is a challenge because where where are we finding those parts and making sure that you have those in quantity for that demand? And how big is that demand? I'm not quite sure.

SPEAKER_00 13:13

Well, I mean, it then you're you're gonna get into category management, right? I mean, batteries for sure. I mean, everybody they will immediately replace the battery even if the car is 10 years old, or they will probably re replace the brake pad even if the brake is 32 years old. Uh, once you get into the major repairs, well, if the car is worth, you know, five thousand pesos, which is, you know, less than ten thousand dollars, then uh some of the repairs start to not make so much sense.

Chinese Makes Share And Shelf Impact

Stacey Miller 14:30

I love that we're talking a little bit about the parts availability um and just kind of business strategy in Mexico, because one of the things that's also a hot topic that you published is the penetration of Chinese vehicles in Mexico. So obviously on a global scale, we've been monitoring the EV penetration in certain countries, um, and obviously the Chinese makes penetration. And that makes what type of parts you're gonna put on the shelf also a little bit more difficult, a challenge, but also an opportunity if you can meet that demand. So tell me a little bit about what's happening with um the Chinese vehicle population in Mexico.

SPEAKER_00 15:07

Yeah, I mean, there was almost no Chinese makes in Mexico nine or 10 years ago. There was maybe one or two, and they slowly started coming, you know, from 2017 to 2018, etc. But uh last year, they were already over 10% of new vehicle sales. And you go to Mexico City, for example, I go there frequently, and every Uber, it's either an MG or a Jack or a BYD, and you look at the car and I'm like, oh, I never saw a car like this before in my life, you know, and now suddenly I'm riding on an Uber like that, right? So um, there are about 30 Chinese makes in Mexico, and they all arrived to Mexico in the last nine or 10 years. Um, that's a lot, and of course, that has created a lot of uh noise and panic because now they're like 10% of the market for new vehicle sales. But when it comes to the VIO, I mean, imagine a vehicle fleet that has 16.2 years average. Well, if you're 10% of one year, you're like 0% of the VIO. So right now, after say nine years of the Chinese makes coming really strong in Mexico, they're finally 1.2% of the light vehicles. Okay. So after after all this time, there's less than a million light vehicles that are of Chinese makes. And then when you come to say medium and heavy trucks, they're also going there. I mean, some people see these cars on the road in Mexico, but they don't see the medium and heavy trucks. In the medium and heavy trucks, they have a tremendous impact. They're already at 4.5% of the VIO in Mexico, which is fantastic, I think, for them for sure. Um, so yes, I mean, if if you are like a multi-make uh store and you want to be able to serve all of these uh vehicles in Mexico, well, probably 1.2% of your shelf needs to be for uh Chinese make uh vehicles, right? Uh probably more if you specialize in the recent model years only. But if you're specializing medium and heavy trucks, well, it's almost 5% of the medium and heavy trucks. So uh yes, I mean the Chinese makes have really redrawn the Mexican uh environment there when it comes to the to the VIO. But they're only 1.2% of the light vehicles, so a lot of noise, but not that huge impact yet. I mean, obviously, uh if they continue selling more than 10% of the new vehicle sales, then the impact will be very dramatic in the years to come, right?

Stacey Miller 18:14

That's really helpful analysis because um I like how you said that there's a lot of panic about it uh once you started seeing the numbers change. But when you look at it relative to the whole VIO, okay, there's time to prepare, there's an opportunity here, but um it's not it's not pandemonium yet. Um and I think the first time we spoke um about a year ago, maybe it was a little over a year ago that we had you on the podcast, we were kind of talking about the same thread and the affordability of these vehicles. And it's only been a couple of years, but we still don't know what the long tail is for how long these vehicles are gonna last in your market, right? Are they gonna last 16 years? We they haven't been around that long yet, right?

SPEAKER_00 18:54

They're getting their act together, Stacey. I mean, uh a couple of years ago, they had issues. Like imagine the five or the top 10 insurance companies in Mexico. They refused to insure the Chinese makes, like most of them. Uh, they made a list of, oh, we're not going to insure these, you know, 27 Chinese-make vehicles. And this was like very serious insurance companies, okay? And why they did that is because the Chinese uh dealers, new car dealers, didn't have the parts. So imagine in Mexico City where traffic is a joy, and uh you come out of the dealer with your brand new Chinese car, and you get to the corner and you crash. You know, you you break the front bumper, you break the front uh light bulbs, and you break the grill or whatever. You just drive back to the dealer, and they don't have any of those parts. Or that was the case a couple of years ago. It's my understanding that they have been getting better on on having availability of uh spare parts, uh so that they reduce that friction with the new car insurance companies, right? Um but you are right. I mean, they we do not know yet after nine years uh what are the best makes, what are the best models. What we do know is that out of the 30 makes, only like five are very representative of the Chinese makes. The other 25, they have like 0% of the Chinese uh share. So you have companies like MG or Chi-Rei or BYD or Jack or Chang'an that are extremely uh visible. They have a very large market share of the Chinese makes. And then you have the other 25. I might be forgetting one or two that are very relevant, but for the most part, the others are completely irrelevant, and I would assume they will tend to disappear over the years because their market share is like 0.01% or something like that. And I don't think that's a viable business model, even as you mentioned, with very low prices and you know, all kinds of uh helps from the government or whatever. I I think um some of those, at least 10 or 15, must disappear in the next uh few years, I would think. Wow.

Latin America Signals And What Comes Next

Stacey Miller 21:30

So something that we're gonna continue to follow. Um, you know, one of the things that I noticed in this year's fact book, uh we track uh in partnership with you what the top 10 makes in the region are. And you know, for the past several years, it's very common you see your Toyota and your Nissan and things like that. Um and for the first time, and maybe I was just oblivious to it, but we looked at it a little bit closer this year, and all of a sudden there were three Chinese makes in the top 10 out of nowhere. And we were like, whoa.

SPEAKER_00 22:04

It's um it's something else. I mean, the Chinese makes are not only in Mexico, but all of Latin America. I mean, if you go to a country, say like Chile, more than 30% of new vehicle sales are Chinese makes. So, you know, in Mexico, people are panicking because ten percent of new vehicle sales are Chinese makes. But you have countries like uh Ecuador or Chile, where it's already over thirty percent of new vehicle sales. Yeah, and it's been like that now for several years. So, you know. If people don't like or they're panicking because the Chinese makes in Mexico are 10% of new vehicle sales, well, if the trend in Mexico is going to mimic what happens in the rest of Latin America, then probably Chinese in Mexico, Chinese makes in Mexico will become 15%, 20%, 30%. And they're they're unstoppable in many Latin American markets, and it could happen in Mexico as well. In Brazil, the Chinese makes have started also very, very slowly, but they're gaining ground there as well. So you know, you have again a country like Chile, they're like 30% of new vehicle sales in Mexico, it's like 10%. And I don't know, in Brazil, I think it's like less than 5%. But the trend is all of them is like following this uh Chile uh uh model. So yes, I I think uh this is something to keep an eye on for the next uh few years for sure.

Factbook Tease And Guest Thanks

Stacey Miller 23:49

Absolutely. Well, super glad um and very grateful that we have you, Everisto, and IDF as a partner helping us track this data, bring this to the aftermarket. Is there anything else you want to say about this new data um that you shared with us?

SPEAKER_00 24:03

Uh not really, Stacy. The only thing I could say is thank you so much for uh inviting me to your podcast. You know, I I really appreciate that. And we're going to continue crunching more numbers so that we can deliver them to uh the factbook. I mean, we are very privileged and uh very uh happy that we can provide some of our data to the factbook and we will put more details uh in that. So keep an eye for the fact book coming out uh soon, I guess.

Stacey Miller 24:31

Amazing. Thank you so much, and we're really looking forward to it.

SPEAKER_00 24:34

Thank you, Stacey. Take care.

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Stacey Miller 24:36

Thanks for tuning in to another episode of Autocare on Air. Make sure to subscribe to our podcast so that you never miss an episode. And don't forget to leave us a rating and review that helps others discover our content. AutoCare on Air is a production of the Autocare Association, dedicated to advancing the autocare industry and supporting professionals like you. To learn more about the association and its initiatives, visit autocare.org.