Lucid to (Maaal): Lucid to open car factory in Saudi Arabia next month … Handing over cars to the Saudi government will start this year

Faisal Sultan, Vice President and Managing Director in the Middle East of Lucid Motors, which is partly owned by the Public Investment Fund, revealed that the Lucid car assembly plant will be opened in Jeddah next month.

Sultan said, “The factory is in King Abdullah Economic City, currently under preparation, and the car assembly department will be opened during the month of September 2023, in addition, the manufactured parts will come from the Arizona factory.

The electric vehicles will be assembled in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to cover the entire region, especially since the factory will be the first of type in the region.

Regarding the work model and logistical challenges in the Saudi factory, which aims to reach the production of 150,000 vehicles annually within 3 years, Sultan indicated that a large part of the equipment and supplies are present, but in a separate manner, in addition to the presence of King Abdullah Port and Jeddah Islamic Port, which receive parts Assembly, stressing their aspiration to use a logistical structure through warehouses designed to store parts, and to work with large companies to provide car parts.

He stated that 5,000 vehicles will be assembled annually, as many additional units will be built to reach the target assembly capacity of 150,000 vehicles annually by 2026.

Regarding the localization of jobs in the factory, he said that our main goal is to adopt the largest percentage of Saudi employees, indicating that the first part of the production of assembled cars was done by Saudi hands, especially since the company delegated Saudis to Arizona at the beginning of the year to receive the necessary training and they will be ready with the opening of the departments. The additional capacity will be in next September, adding that at first the capacity will be a few hundred employees, but in the peak stages we are talking about thousands of employees with the completion and opening of additional departments in 2026.

As for demand, target markets, and expansion plans for new factories, the Managing Director in the Middle East of Lucid Motors explained that they have no plans to open other new factories, pointing out that the main factory in Arizona and the regional main factory in Saudi Arabia, which is primarily targeted, are enough. Gulf market, and then targeting global markets in the future and exporting to all regions of the world, explaining that the company has received thousands of reservations for Lucid cars.

Faisal Sultan added that Lucid will start handing over its cars to the Saudi government during this year, according to the prior agreement signed with the Ministry of Finance, which includes the purchase of 50,000 to 100 cars over a period of 10 years.

As for the scarcity of charging points in the Kingdom and investment in this field, Sultan replied: “We are in constant contact with the government and private sectors, and we help them legally and rationalize investment. Currently, there are some car rental companies and other companies that have started using our cars, and this will help us greatly, because charging points require an investment in the initial form, but the return will be great later. There will not be one type of electric car, but there will be many types. The more types and the greater the number of electric cars on the roads, the charging points will gradually increase”.

Sultan continued, I believe that the charging points will be more successful and feasible when they are compatible with all types of cars, and companies will reap some profits from selling services and electricity, and for “Lucid” it is a complementary service and not our goal to make profits from charging points, but other companies are trying to reap profits.

He added, we have recently begun to notice many charging points in some stations such as SASCO, Aramco, some residential buildings and private parking, and for our cars 90% of the time you can rely on a home charging point and charge twice a week for four hours and it will be enough to drive around the city without problems , But the only challenge is driving between cities, from here to the city of Jeddah or Medina needs public charging points on the road, and the need for charging points will strengthen the conviction of public companies and the government to invest in this field.

About the challenge of competing with luxury car companies such as Bentley and Mercedes, Faisal Sultan concluded by saying, we are a new brand and we have a more than wonderful product. Compared to the rest of the electric cars, so they have to try it and we have to market it in a big way to get a larger market share, do not forget that some brands have been in the market for centuries, they have their name and we are trying to build a name for us in the market so the more customers who drive more cars, the greater our opportunity to compete with the big brands in the market.