Amongst the carmakers using the port is Ford, after an absence of several years, which is importing its Fiesta Ikon from Ennore in India. Last year, it handled just 800 units there but has plans to grow this in 2013 with the Ikon along with several others. Inbound cars are eventually loaded on rail transporters at a facility the company maintains at Cuautitlán for onward distribution.
The new dedicated finished vehicles terminal at Lazaro Cárdenas, which is under construction, is hoped to generate similar levels of traffic to Veracruz. However it is currently far behind the east coast port, which saw finished vehicles traffic grow by 18.1% last year to 805,794 units, of which 689,175 were exports and 186,619 imports. Volkswagen, Nissan, Ford, Chrysler and GM all make use of the port, which sends exports to the US, Canada, as well as South America, Europe and Asia.
For all of last year, the number of finished vehicles handled by ports in Mexico grew by 12.9% overall from 1,089,627 units in 2011 to 1,230,577 units last year.
