Automotive Logistics — 2026-11-12
Automotive Industry
Three years ago the port of Lázaro Cárdenas had room for as many cars as the carmakers then in the market wanted to hold there. Ricardo Hernández, logistics director at Mitsubishi Motors Mexico, recalled that period at Automotive Logistics & Supply Chain Mexico 2026 in Mexico City on November 11. "Currently everyone is thinking how to get out of the port as fast as possible," he said.
That shift ran through both finished vehicle logistics panels on the first day. Much of the pressure is coming from newer brands, many of them Chinese, for whom dealer availability is an increasingly important factor. "If you don't have the car at the dealer, you miss the sale," said Sergio Gutierrez, chief operating officer at Glovis America, describing the buyer of a Chinese vehicle. For that mindset, he argued, large plots of land holding stored vehicles mean little, and throughput is what counts.
José Carlos Núñez Martínez, logistics supervisor at Geely Auto Mexico, said Geely sold around 300 units when it arrived in Mexico and now sells about 4,000 a month. Its key performance indicators require vehicles to reach dealers within about five days, and it aims to keep imported volumes in port for no more than three.
Capacity chasing demand
Logistics providers described heavy investment to keep pace. Gutierrez said Glovis had spent substantially at Manzanillo, Mazatlán and Lázaro Cárdenas, but that none of those ports had enough capacity on its own for the volumes heading to Mexico. David Plata, head of finished vehicle logistics at Hyundai Glovis Mexico, said the company was adding more than 7,000 bonded spaces at Lázaro Cárdenas, alongside 25,000 units of longer-term storage outside the port.
Michael Rye, senior vice-president of customer growth for the Americas at Wallenius Wilhelmsen, pointed to a global shortage of vessel capacity driven largely out of Asia-Pacific. His company is investing $1.5bn in 26 new ships, he said, but these will arrive over five years, so in the interim it must prioritise contracted customers and cannot serve every new brand entering Mexico. Gutierrez said Glovis planned to expand its dedicated fleet from 96 vessels to 130 by 2030.
Núñez said Geely works with every shipping line in Mexico and uses containers alongside ro-ro vessels.
The landside network is lagging, several speakers warned. René Guzmán, deputy director of finished vehicle logistics at Nissan Mexicana, said infrastructure "is not evolving as fast as the market is requiring". Eduardo Páez, logistics manager at GWM Mexico, said new brands were arriving faster than the facilities needed to move them, recalling the port congestion of the pandemic peak.
Redrawing the network
Guzmán said a new vehicle distribution centre in Veracruz, serving volumes now arriving from India and Brazil, had cut Nissan's distribution costs by up to 20%. Nissan has also moved all its US exports onto rail, removing port handling points, and consolidated rail imports from the US into full monthly slots through a new railhead in Monterrey, which he said reduced damage and vandalism.
Hernández noted that Mitsubishi holds around 2.5% of the Mexican market, against roughly 25% for Nissan, and cannot justify several distribution centres, so it routes both vehicles and containers through Lázaro Cárdenas. "The small fish should move faster," he said. Núñez said trucks currently suit Geely best from its Lázaro Cárdenas base, while Rye said rail would become vital as the market right-sizes.
Plata also gave an update on the Interoceanic Corridor. He said a crossing of 3,000 units took place around five months ago, with another of more than 3,000 in preparation, and presented the route as an alternative to the congested Panama Canal. Gutierrez said Glovis was working with clients and government to establish "a corridor that is safe, that it never stops".
Damage, data and the dealer
Jason Blood, chief commercial officer at Sphere Global, said some carmakers wait three, six or 12 months for claims data to show where damage occurred, and called for a digital passport that follows each vehicle from plant to dealer. Hernández said dealers accept that damage can happen; their complaint is learning about it late. He cited a customer in Cancún who received a car in perfect condition but could not obtain licence plates because its record in REPUVE, the national vehicle registry, had not been updated.
For Guzmán, the issue was "not the lack of information, it's the amount of information that we have but not gathered". Páez said a smaller but better-measured network had helped GWM cut its damage index by 72%, and that GWM hopes to launch its own system in the first quarter of 2027.
Partnerships under pressure
The faster rhythm is also changing commercial terms. Gutierrez said the traditional three-to-five-year contract was "pretty much gone", yet providers still need longer-term commitment to have assets ready, while truckers, railroads and port operators need stability "while we don't get something that stable". Rye said every tender now demanded an immediate solution, which brought risk. "Let's not confuse speed with effectiveness," he said.
From the carmaker side, Páez said capacity and competitive rates "open the conversation, but not the relationship". The best partners, in his view, can read the stage a new brand has reached and respond as quickly as a Chinese headquarters expects, rather than defaulting to no.
Beyond the logistics chain
Gutierrez did not expect the volumes to fade. He argued that Chinese imports, which he said already hold about 20% of the market, would normalise rather than retreat after this year's tariffs. Núñez said Geely had used its own vessels to move volume before a 40% tariff took effect on January 1, and that it had made what he described as the first import into Mexico under the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, from Malaysia. Rye cautioned against building permanently for peaks. "You don't build a church for Christmas and Easter," he said.
Hernández closed on pressures outside logistics control, naming infrastructure and security as the critical issues. Japanese carmakers and their chamber of commerce are working with the National Guard, the army and the navy to reduce robberies, he said, and such pressures are adding cost and inefficiency to the supply chain.