A new cycle of industrial product and the onset of labor transformation: Building analytical approaches to study the automotive transition across North America

Abstract

This paper agues that the disruptive transition of the automotive industry towards a new industrial paradigm of electrification and new mobilities is generating a new product life cycle (CVP) that favors investment placement in countries like Mexico. The convergence of this with the new nearshoring strategies of companies, the disruption of supply chains, and ongoing conflicts ultimately amplifies the attractiveness of Mexican AI (IAM). A conceptual model is provided to grasp the change in the automotive CVP during the transition and another to understand the change in the country's industrial and labor regime as a long-term socio-technical transition. Thus, with evidence of the global evolution of AI and IAM and by reconstructing the trajectories of Ford and Tesla, it goes on to illustrate why Mexico will be the major winner in North America from the radical reorientation of the industry.