Mexico: the original three-play decision and the corrected current ranking.
Eleven candidate plays and 61 HS2022 products are screened on export specialization, related capabilities and trade scale. The original three-play decision is preserved below. The current ranking incorporates a documented solar-basket correction; it does not automatically change which chains receive full play cards.
The February 2026 selection of Auto Supplier, EV Components and Grid Hardware remains the historical decision. The current BACI 2024 screen uses taxonomy 1.3: Solar PV now contains the dedicated HS2022 cell and module codes 854142 and 854143. Obsolete semiconductor headings and generic optical elements have been removed. This changes the normalization across all 61 products, so the comparison combines a data update with a basket correction. Auto Supplier ranks first; Power Electronics enters second, EV Components is third and Grid Hardware fourth. Heat Pumps and Electric Vehicles remain directed coverage additions. The strip below preserves the original trade/basket comparisons; it is not a constant-basket time series.
Weight sensitivity: 1,000 Monte Carlo draws from a Dirichlet distribution centered on weights 0.30/0.30/0.20/0.20 (concentration 50, seed 20260610). Rank ranges cover the central 90% of these draws. They quantify this choice of weights; they are not confidence intervals, sampling error, or probabilities of investment success.
Auto Supplier Upgrading has $37.4B in exports and weighted RCA 3.5; all nine products exceed RCA 1. It remains first in 100% of the tested weight draws. This describes existing export capability and sensitivity to the selected weights; it does not estimate investment risk or future success.
Power Electronics now ranks second, represented by the static-converter product with $3.0B in exports. That same product also belongs to EV Components, which ranks third at $20.5B across 11 products. These are overlapping opportunity baskets: their exports cannot be added as independent markets.
Grid Hardware ranks fourth, with $20.9B in exports and 16 of 19 products above RCA 1. Its original selection remains part of the decision record. The earlier EV/Grid near-tie claim does not describe this corrected basket; the table publishes the rank ranges under the current weight sensitivity exercise.
The upper-right (high relatedness, high RCA) identifies products with strong national export specialization and related capabilities. Auto parts and grid hardware cluster here, making them candidates for further investigation. Local supplier capacity, workforce availability, and infrastructure still need site-level confirmation.
Li-ion batteries, PV cells and modules, and wind generators remain below RCA 1. Their observed exports are positive. The product-space view separates export specialization from proximity to the current basket; neither measure establishes what a new investment will achieve.
The upper-left holds isolated strengths that are defensible but have little surrounding capability to build on. The lower-right holds the most feasible diversification targets: close to what Mexico already makes but not yet competitive. The watchlist lives here.
The RCA = 1 line marks the threshold of revealed comparative advantage. Products to the right are capabilities Mexico already demonstrates in global trade.
Grid hardware shows broad export specialization. Energy storage differs by product: lead-acid batteries and accumulator parts exceed RCA 1, while Li-ion does not. Solar PV now measures actual PV cells and modules: together they export $229M, with neither product above RCA 1. Generic optical elements are outside this basket.
Investment concentrates in three corridors: Bajío (SLP, Guanajuato, Querétaro) anchored by BMW, Ford, and BorgWarner; Northeast (Nuevo León, Coahuila, Tamaulipas) driven by Tesla (paused), GM, Stellantis, TPI Composites; and Baja California dominated by solar module assembly (Maxeon, Kyocera).
Bajío and Northeast overlap with Mexico's auto supplier base, the highest-scoring candidate. Their recorded projects help identify potential suppliers and locations. Project status and announced investment still require verification before treating the pipeline as committed capital or reduced execution risk.
The original selection provides a record of the policy decision. The corrected current screen changes the ordering and identifies Power Electronics for further review. Product overlap, source coverage, buyer requirements and project evidence still matter before expanding coverage or committing resources.
The Play Cards map each value chain: inputs, standards, sequencing, finance. The Constraint Maps show where the grid binds each one, and who controls the fix.