One area that was under consideration was around the city of Guadalajara, one of the people said. That region has emerged over the past decade as a technology hub sometimes described as Mexico’s Silicon Valley. BYD sent a delegation to the area in March.

Li also visited Mexico City in February for the launch of the automaker’s Dolphin Mini model, while senior management held court at a box sponsored by BYD at the Formula E Mexico City E-Prix in January.

Tesla had announced plans to build the plant in the northern state of Nuevo Leon, with an estimated investment of US$10 billion over several phases.

Mexico could be one of BYD’s key overseas production sites, along with plants that it is currently building or already operating in Brazil, Hungary, Turkey and Thailand. Like other big Chinese carmakers, Shenzhen-based BYD is increasingly seeking to localise production to avoid punitive tariffs that governments around the world are starting to levy on imported electric cars and plug-in hybrid vehicles from Asia’s biggest economy.

While BYD has previously said any cars built in Mexico would be for local consumption, the prospect of exporting its affordable range of EVs to a huge auto market like the US would be tantalising.

Mexico is seen as a strategically attractive landing point for foreign carmakers given its proximity to the US. It’s also part of a North American free trade agreement with the US and Canada.

The US already plans tariffs of 100 per cent on Chinese EVs, an action president Joe Biden’s administration said will ensure the future of the auto industry will be made in America by American workers.

The Biden administration is also watching for any attempts by Chinese companies to export cars from Mexico into the US, and considering ways to block them if they seek to circumvent tariffs targeting EVs made in China, US trade representative Katherine Tai said in an interview in May.

BYD’s Li said in a Bloomberg News interview in late August that she planned to meet at some point with Mexico’s incoming president Claudia Sheinbaum, who takes office on October 1, and that the company was still weighing three locations for a factory in Mexico.

Later that day, opposition groups reported at least two arrests of staff, including a lawyer for Machado’s movement.

“Around the world the cry of Venezuelans is being heard,” Machado – the main face of the opposition – told supporters at a lunchtime rally in Caracas, urging them to keep up pressure and “at the same time protect one another, because what the regime has let loose is brutal”.

Shortly after the rally, the opposition coalition said party leader Biagio Pilieri, who appeared alongside Machado, had been arrested.

The last known location of Pilieri, the head of the Convergencia Venezuela party, was outside the Helicoide prison in Caracas, the coalition said on X, adding a screenshot of his mobile phone’s location and saying he had been with his son Jesus, an opposition youth leader.

“Does Venezuela want a civil war? It will be resolved with laws, with justice, with the established order, that is how it has been, that is how it will be,” Maduro said at his own rally.

In the western oil city of Maracaibo, fewer than 100 opposition supporters gathered for a brief protest early on Wednesday, closely watched by police.

Small crowds also gathered in San Cristobal, near the border with Colombia, in the central cities of Barquisimeto and Valencia and in eastern Puerto Ordaz.

Many attendees were older adults, Reuters witnesses said. Gonzalez and Machado, aged 74 and 56, respectively, focused much of their campaign rhetoric on older populations who would like to see migrant children and grandchildren return home.

More than 7.7 million Venezuelans have left in recent years and others have said that they would seek to go too if Maduro’s socialists continued in power.

At a pro-government rally in Caracas, ruling party supporter Andres Guillen said Maduro was the election winner.

“The fascists tried a month ago to destabilise our country but we did it thanks to the strength of the people, the nobility, the humility,” he told state television.

Protests since the vote have led to at least 27 deaths. Human rights group Foro Penal says some 1,780 people are being held as political prisoners, including 114 adolescents.

Gonzalez, who along with Machado, is being investigated for incitement and other crimes by Attorney General Tarek Saab, has ignored two summons to testify about the opposition website where vote tallies have been posted.

Saab told a press conference on Wednesday afternoon he would issue a third summons, which would mark the final opportunity for Gonzalez to appear before Venezuelan law allows an arrest warrant to be issued for him.

“If he misses it, the public ministry will announce a corresponding action,” Saab said.

The electoral council says it has not yet posted detailed tallies of what it says is Maduro’s victory, with just over half of votes, because a cyberattack affected its system.