Lucid has opened its first international manufacturing facility and it’s located in a rather unusual place – Saudi Arabia.
Known as Advanced Manufacturing Plant 2 or AMP-2 for short, the facility has begun semi knocked-down (SKD) assembly of the Air and is expected to have an annual capacity of 5,000 units. The SKD kits are “pre-manufactured” at the company’s plant in Casa Grande, Arizona and then shipped to the Middle East for assembly.
This process is only supposed to be temporary as the plant intends to become a fully fledged production facility “after the middle of the decade.” If everything goes according to plan, the production capacity will increase to 150,000 units annually. More importantly for locals, the workforce is expected to grow from the hundreds into the thousands.
More: Lucid Raising An Extra $3 Billion, Including $1.8 Billion From The Saudis
Vehicles made at the plant will be sold in Saudi Arabia as well as undisclosed export markets. The company was coy on specifics, but said “Jeddah’s position on the Kingdom’s Red Sea coast already offers robust supply chain access by land and sea and enables Lucid to export its finished luxury electric vehicles to other regions in the future.”
Lucid CEO Peter Rawlinson said “We are delighted to make history today in Saudi Arabia by opening the country’s first car manufacturing facility, which will produce our award-winning electric vehicles and support the country’s vision for a more sustainable and diversified economy.”
His sentiments were echoed by Lucid’s Middle East Managing Director, Faisal Sultan, who stated “The opening of our facility today marks the beginning of our production operations to assemble our world class Lucid Air. AMP-2 in KAEC, in addition to our existing AMP-1 facility in Arizona, gives us the ability to efficiently fulfill the recently signed agreement with the government of Saudi Arabia to purchase up to 100,000 vehicles over a ten-year period, with an initial commitment to purchase 50,000 vehicles and an option to purchase up to an additional 50,000 vehicles over the same period.”
Lucid said the company received “significant support” from the Ministry of Investment of Saudi Arabia, the Saudi Industrial Development Fund, and the King Abdullah Economic City. This shouldn’t be surprising as Reuters noted Saudi’s Public Investment Fund owns over 60% of the automaker.
