Automotive industry in Argentina

The automotive industry in Argentina is the third largest in Latin America, driving 3% of GDP, 10% of total industrial production, and 10% of total exports in 2023.^[1] With a dozen global multinationals^[2] and over 200 auto parts^[3] companies operating in the country, Argentina's automotive sector is a sophisticated and technologically advanced industry. Argentina has also emerged as a regional production hub in Latin America, exporting over USD $8 billion annually^[4] in passenger vehicles, light and heavy commercial vehicles, trucks, motorcycles, and parts primarily to Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Peru, and Central America.^[5]

The Argentine automotive industry is regulated by the Association of Car Manufacturers (Spanish: Asociación De Fabricantes de Automotores, Adefa),^[6] created in 1960, which includes automakers (cars, trucks, and buses). Adefa is part of the International Automobile Manufacturers Association (OICA) based in Paris.

In addition to multinational automakers, several Argentine-owned auto manufacturers operate in the country, including Materfer,^[7] ТАТ SA,^[8] Helvetica,^[9] Crespi, and PurSang,^[10] primarily as producers of replicas of classic cars.

Motor vehicle assembly in Argentina started in the early twentieth century when local entrepreneur Horacio Anasagasti operated a workshop from 1906 to 1911 that produced custom vehicles using imported European parts.^[11] A commercial scale industry was launched in 1913 with the opening of a Ford plant in the Barracas neighborhood of Buenos Aires that assembled imported knock down kits. By 1920, Ford's Argentine operations had grown to 1,500 employees due to rising demand for cars in South America.^[12]

Until the mid-1950s, virtually all motor vehicles in Argentina were imported either as fully assembled vehicles or knock-down kits, which made consumption vulnerable to disruption. From 1925 to 1929, Argentina imported an average of 60,000 motor vehicles per year, which fell to under 10,000 annually in 1932-33 due to the Great Depression and under 500 annually from 1943-1945 due to World War II. Under the Perón regime, imports briefly surged to 80,000 units in 1947 but were restricted to an average of only 9,000 units annually from 1949 to 1955 due to recurring balance of payments crises.^[13]

Domestic production started in 1952 when Mercedes-Benz's commercial trucks division opened a chassis manufacturing facility at González Catán in Buenos Aires Province that was the company's first integrated production plant outside of Germany.^[11] A large-scale passenger vehicle industry was established in 1955 when the Perón regime and American businessman Henry J. Kaiser formed a joint venture between state-owned Industrias Aeronáuticas y Mecánicas del Estado (IAME) and Kaiser-Frazer Automobile Co. Known as Industrias Kaiser Argentina (IKA), the joint venture was capitalized by a contribution of second-hand equipment by Kaiser, a cash investment by IAME, and a local share offering. The first Argentine manufactured Jeep rolled off the assembly line at IKA's plant at Córdoba in April 1956.^[14]

[This section will cover the industry created by Frondizi, initially with a focus on import substitution and later on export promotion within LAFTA.]

[This section will cover 1975-1990, including trade liberalization under the military administration in the 1970s and the first bilateral agreements between Brazil and Argentina in the 1980s.]

Integration between the automotive industries of Argentina and Brazil has deepened since the 1990s through gradual liberalization and managed trade agreements. Although the 1991 Treaty of Asunción, which established the Mercosur trading bloc, specifically excluded the automotive sector, the Common Market Council (Mercosur's highest decision-marking authority) issued Decision 29/94 in December 1994 calling for a common automotive regime by January 1, 2000.^[15]

An industry expert observed that the Argentine and Brazilian automotive sectors are "actually a single industry spread across two countries."^[16]

In 2019, Brazil and Argentina renewed their bilateral auto trade agreement with the goal of free trade by 2029. In the meantime, Brazil can increase its exports to Argentina under the so-called flex agreement that limits Brazil to selling $1.50 to Argentina for every $1.00 that it buys from Argentina; this ratio will increase to $3.00 by July 2028.^[17]

The two governments entered an agreement in August 2022 to reduce non-tariff barriers by recognizing technical certifications for vehicle safety issued by the other country, which authorities claimed would result in a USD $13 billion increase in bilateral automotive trade by 2040.^[18]

Motor vehicle assembly plants operating in Argentina today include:

• Toyota Motor Corporation’s plant at Zárate in Buenos Aires province, which opened in 1997 with annual production of 10,000 units. By 2023, annual production had increased to 180,000 units, 80% of which is exported to 22 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean. The plant currently has 6,000 employees.^[19]
• Ford Motor Company’s Pacheco Stamping and Assembly facility at General Pacheco in Buenos Aires province. The plant, which is solely dedicated to Ford Ranger pickup trucks, has 3,800 employees and an annual production capacity of 110,000 units.^[20] Over 70% of production is exported.^[21] In June 2024, Ford started producing Ford Ranger engines for export at Pacheco as well.^[22]
• General Motors’ plant at Alvear in Santa Fe province, which produces the Chevy Tracker SUV.^[23] 80% of production is exported.^[24]
• Stellantis’ two plants at El Palomar in Buenos Aires province and Ferreyra in Córdoba province.
• Volkswagen’s two plants at General Pacheco and Córdoba. The Pacheco facility focuses on Taos and Amarok vehicles and assembled 76,900 units in 2023.^[25] At Córdoba, Volkswagen produces gearboxes, Ducati motorcycles, trucks, and buses. Truck and bus production started in 2024 and will replace units currently imported from Brazil.^[26]
• Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi Alliance's plant in Córdoba, which produces 80,000 units of Renault passenger vehicles^[27] and 20,000 units of the Nissan Frontier pickup truck annually. 50% of Nissan Frontier production is exported to other Latin American countries, including Brazil, Chile, and Colombia.^[28]
• Mercedes-Benz Group's plant at Virrey del Pino, La Matanza Partido in Buenos Aires province, which focuses on Sprinter van production. The plant exports 70% of its production,^[29] including right-hand drive assembled vehicles to Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa, and CKD (completely knocked down) kits to NAFTA markets.^[30]
• Daimler Truck (Mercedes-Benz Trucks and Buses)'s plant at Virrey del Pino, La Matanza Partido in Buenos Aires province, which produces Atego and Accelo light trucks as well as engines and gearboxes.^[31] In 2024, the company announced that it would open a new production facility at Zárate that would open in Q1 2026.^[32]
• Honda Motor Company’s plant at Campana in Buenos Aires province, which focuses on motorcycles after Honda ended automobile production in Argentina in 2020.^[33] The facility produces for both the domestic market and for export throughout Latin America and Africa.
• Scania's plant at Colombres in Tucumán province, which focuses on parts and has 600 employees and 200 contractors.^[34] The facility exports 100% of its production, primarily to Brazil.^[35]
• Iveco's plant at Ferreyra, which focuses on commercial vehicles and exports 10% of its production to Latin America and Asia.^[36][37]

Prior to 2019, the automotive industry operated with a significant trade deficit that averaged over USD $6 billion per year from 2016 to 2018. However, the economic downturn that started in late 2018 reduced imports while increasing the amount of capacity available for exports; as a result, the sector's annual trade deficit has averaged only USD $60 million since 2019.^{[38][39][40][41]}

Brazil is the top export destination, purchasing over 60% of Argentine vehicle exports, with most of the remainder sold to Chile, Colombia, Peru, and Central America.

Like much of Argentina's manufacturing sector, Argentina's automotive industry suffers from low productivity by global standards. Labor productivity during the period 2010-2018 for motor vehicle production in Argentina was estimated to be 10-15% lower than in Brazil and India, 55% lower than in Mexico, and 65% lower than in Thailand.^[42]

Productivity challenges in the Argentine motor vehicle industry are partly due to limited economies of scale. Experts believe that an automotive assembly plant requires annual production volume of at least 100,000 to 300,000 units in order to achieve scale efficiencies.^[43] In Argentina, only Toyota's Zárate assembly plant, which produced over 180,000 vehicles in 2023, has sufficient scale to be globally competitive. By contrast, the local subsidiaries of General Motors, Ford, Volkswagen, Stellantis, and Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi produced an average of only 60,000 units per assembly facility in 2023.^[44]

However, scale is not the only driver of Argentina's low productivity. Toyota has disclosed that key performance indicators such as operational availability, employee absenteeism, and defects per vehicle at its Zárate facility significantly lagged company benchmarks between 2006 and 2010.^[45] The company publicly stated in 2021 that a shortage of skilled labor was an obstacle to its expansion plans in the country and elaborated that many of its job candidates had not completed their secondary education and in some cases lacked basic literacy skills.^[46]

Despite holding large reserves of lithium and copper, Argentina is a marginal player in the production of electric and hybrid vehicles. Argentine automotive exports focus on SUVs and pickup trucks, which have lost share to Chinese-made vehicles in the important Brazilian market as consumers there switch to inexpensive electric vehicles (EVs). As a result, during the first eight months of 2024, the proportion of Brazilian automotive imports sourced in Argentina decreased to 46% of total vs. 65% for the same period in 2023. Meanwhile, the share of Brazilian imports from China soared from 8% to 26% of total during the same time period, with most of the increase consisting of EVs.^[47]

To date, the EV revolution in Argentina has been led by small-scale local entrepreneurs such as CORADIR, which delivered 500 units of its Tito model during 2023.^[48] Domestic production of electric buses also launched in August 2024 when bus operator DOTA S.A. placed an order for the first five zero-emissions MT17.0e buses to be assembled by local manufacturers Agrale and Todo Bus in partnership with British electric drivetrain producer Equipmake.^[49]

However, global EV manufacturers have yet to establish operations at scale in Argentina. An announcement by Chery in February 2023 to invest USD $400 million in an Argentine assembly plant^[50] has not been followed up publicly by the company and is not currently mentioned on the website of its Argentine subsidiary.^[51] Local expectations (or perhaps wishful thinking) that Tesla might open an assembly plant in Argentina emerged after CEO Elon Musk posted on X in May 2024: “I recommend investing in Argentina;”^[52] as of September 2024, Tesla has not announced an investment in the country.

Meanwhile, a plan by the outgoing Fernández administration to launch lithium cell and battery manufacturing by UniLiB, a joint venture between state oil giant YPF and the Universidad Nacional de La Plata, was suspended by President Javier Milei amid concerns about the economic viability of the project.^[53] As a result, Argentina’s participation in the green transition is primarily as a raw materials producer, exemplified by Stellantis’ USD $90 million acquisition in 2023 of a 19.9% stake in Argentina Litio y Energia to secure future lithium supplies.^[54]

Argentina’s automotive industry has been severely impacted by the economic downturn that started in mid-2023. During the first seven months of 2024, total automotive industry production at constant prices decreased by -18.3% compared to the same period in 2023.^[55]

Exports declined by -8.9% during the first seven months of 2024 compared to the same period in 2023 due to reduced shipments to Chile, Colombia, and Peru.^[9]

Automakers have been impacted by the scarcity of foreign currency available to buy imported parts, resulting in production shutdowns for several manufacturers in early 2024. General Motors’ Alvear plant suspended production from December 29, 2023 to March 4, 2024.^[56] Several manufacturers have implemented layoffs, including Toyota, which laid off 400 employees in March 2024,^[57] and Volkswagen, which laid off 300 employees in August 2024.^[58]

However, even in the midst of this severe downturn, Argentina's automotive sector continues to attract greenfield foreign direct investment. In February 2024, Toyota announced a USD $50 million investment to produce the Hiace utility vehicle at its plant in Zárate, creating 100 local direct and indirect jobs.^[59] Mercedes-Benz announced construction of a new bus and truck plant, also in Zárate, in March 2024; this new plant will complete the company's USD $110 million investment cycle initiated in 2021.^[60] Stellantis announced USD $270 million in investment at its El Palomar factory in April 2024^[61] and a further USD $385 million at its Ferreyra facility in September 2024.^[62] In May 2024, Volkswagen opened a truck and bus assembly plant next to an existing operation Córdoba that produces car transmissions for export.^[63] Honda announced a USD $15 million investment at its Campana motorcycle factory in August 2024 to export parts to Brazil.^[64] In September 2024, Renault announced a USD $300 million investment at its Santa Isabel to assemble a new pickup truck with plans to export 65-70% of production.^[65] These announcements and new plant openings demonstrate that global automakers remain confident about Argentina’s long-term potential as a market and regional production base.

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