From 'Auto Chueco' to Border Chocolate: Short Film Explores the Complexities of US-Mexico Used Vehicle Exports

A global second-hand vehicle market, largely invisible to many people in the US, affects the economy, transportation, public health, and environment in the countries where the vehicles end up and their countries of origin. As increasing numbers of exported, used vehicles are hybrid and electric, their operation in importing countries can help reduce local air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions. However, the disposal and recycling of spent batteries pose significant risks, particularly in regions that lack the infrastructure needed for safe handling. Without proper systems in place, poorer countries may become dumping grounds for toxic materials and valuable critical minerals exported from wealthier ones.

Addressing these risks will require coordinated action by importing and exporting countries. Recycling capacity must be expanded, and well-informed policies developed to guide the safe collection, repurposing, and recycling of used batteries. Just as importantly, new frameworks for cooperation are needed to reintegrate recovered critical minerals back into primary supply chains, maximizing economic benefits while minimizing harmful downstream environmental and social impacts. To shed light on this problem we partnered with a team of filmmakers to create a 15-minute documentary film, “Border Chocolate – The Second Life Economy of Cars.”

The film grew out of a personal dilemma. In 2022, a lack of data and reporting on vehicle and battery movement from the US to Mexico compelled me, as a researcher, to go to Mexico and speak to owners of used vehicles, repair shops, and junkyards, as well as policy makers. Some of these people are featured in the film. As they explain, used vehicles in the US, especially salvage vehicles, are purchased from online international auctions by people in Mexico (and elsewhere). Many of these cars don’t fully comply with Mexico’s import rules, but even when they technically could be legalized, the process is expensive and held-up in governmental processing. So instead of paying and waiting, many people simply drive the vehicles unregistered, as 'chocolate cars.'

As the film explains, chocolate (pronounced chawk-oh-LAHT-ay in Spanish) emerged as a playful twist on the similar-sounding Spanish word chueco, meaning crooked—in the geometric as well as the legal and moral sense. Auto chueco thus morphed into auto chocolate, which is now shorthand for vehicles that entered the country informally and operate under the radar. This light-hearted term, however, refers to a massive political issue—one that resurfaces with every change of administration and carries downstream environmental, mobility, and social consequences.

Autos chocolate, as well as legally imported used cars, provide economic opportunities to their owners and cost far less than new or used vehicles purchased domestically in Mexico. Their repair and maintenance also sustain a dense ecosystem of repair shops and junkyards, which increasingly serve “mechanical tourists” from the US who drive south to save money on labor and parts.

At the same time, this dynamic has important implications for the US. Used-vehicle exports bring billions of dollars a year into the US. They also help clear older and salvage vehicles from the US fleet, making room for new sales and supporting the continual turnover of vehicles on US roads. But the outflow of repairable vehicles and components can make used parts scarcer at home, contributing to higher repair costs for US drivers. As electric vehicles enter these same channels, the US risks losing track of batteries that contain valuable critical minerals, effectively leaking materials that could otherwise support domestic reuse, recycling, and emerging supply chains.

Possible policies that may help address the problem, which are not outlined in the film, include:

• Battery state of health or minimum range requirements: Requiring imported used hybrids and electric vehicles to have batteries with at least 75-80% of their life remaining (a policy that is already in place in several countries);
• Improved transparency and traceability: For example, placing a code on the battery that provides information, such as origin or chemical composition, that is valuable to downstream stakeholders;
• Extended producer responsibility schemes: For example, charging a fee when the vehicle is produced or imported that will cover end-of-life costs, and using that fee to fund new recycling and disposal companies; and
• Targeted penalties for non-compliance: Imposing a high penalty to deter people from illegally disposing of batteries.

The film provides an informative and, we hope, engaging introduction to this nascent issue and possible opportunity for the US, Mexico, and other nations to fairly distribute the benefits and burdens of hybrid and electric vehicles. It has screened at festivals in San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Diego, and Mexico City and received the ‘Best Editing’ award at the last of these.

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For more information and details on our research on the flow of vehicles and batteries out of the US, see these publications from the last few years:

For more information and details on our research on the flow of vehicles and batteries out of the US, see these publications from the last few years:

• Trade, Extended Use, and End-of-Life in the Global South: Regionally Expanded EV Life Cycle Assessment;
• US-Mexico Second-Hand EV Trade: Implications for Battery Circularity and EOL Policy Implications.
• Electric Vehicle Lithium-ion Batteries in Lower- and Middle-income Countries: Life Cycle Impacts and Issues. 

Francisco Parés Olguín is deputy director of the Global South Center for Clean Transportation at ITS-Davis.