Lucid Motors stated on Wednesday that it plans to build an EV factory in Saudi by 2025 or 2026. Currently Lucid is in talks with the ministries in the kingdom negotiating about the details. These details include ownership percentages for Lucid and partners on the project.
The talks with Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund with the potential location for EV factory to be near the Red Sea city of Jeddah. The news about the talks was known in the first week of January, however, it is only on Wednesday Lucid confirmed with Bloomberg as Chairman Andrew Liveris was on the Bloomberg Television show. The report states by Bloomberg states,
“Lucid Motors Inc. is in talks with Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund to build an electric vehicle factory potentially near the Red Sea city of Jeddah, according to people familiar with the matter.”
The maker of the $169,000 Air sedan is known to be receiving $360 billion Public Investment Fund, also a shareholder in Lucid. Much of this investment will be used for the factory site at the King Abdullah Economic City. However, the other potential location the PIF and Lucid have considered is Neom, a new city being developed in the northwest of Saudi Arabia.
The former chairman and chief executive officer of Dow Chemical Co., Liveris said that he’s taken delivery of one of Lucid’s cars in Florida. The goal of Lucid is to deliver around 520 limited editions of Air Sedan and deliver the lower spec vehicle in large numbers. However, the company is struggling to keep up with supply chain issues. Stated by Liveris as, “We’ll have a lot more to say to the market about the sorts of things we’re seeing in the supply chain. Yes, we’re experiencing supply chain issues.”
Lucid a few years ago
Back in 2016 Lucid planned an Arizona plant which initially planned to start production by 2018. However, they had certain issues and could not go along as planned. Later they planned for a 2019 launch and difficulties in the company’s finances led to another delay. In 2018 the company secured funding of $1 billion from the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia (PIF) finally let Lucid make some progress.
Now, the PIF is set to play a major role in Saudi development projects over the next few years. Especially as the government looks to cut spending and keep the budget deficit in check after oil’s coronavirus-triggered rout. Yasir Al Rumayyan, governor of the fund, said it will spend at least $40 billion locally this year and in 2022.
