Lucid Motors could build a factory near the Saudi Arabian city of Jeddah.
Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund has already invested more than $1 billion into the electric startup and, according to sources familiar with the talks, will provide much of the money needed for the site that could be located at the King Abdullah Economic City.
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Bloomberg reports that Lucid and the wealth fund are also considering establishing the factory in Neom, a new city currently being developed in the northwest of the country. Saudi Arabia is looking to establish itself as the Middle Eastern hub for electric vehicle manufacturing.
Lucid recently completed the first phase of construction at its factory in Casa Grande, Arizona in November having broken ground at the 590-acre site on December 2, 2019. The first section will have the capacity to build up to 30,000 vehicles annually. Three other phases of construction at the site are planned through 2028 that will see the square footage of the plant jump from 990,000 square feet to 5.1 million square feet, allowing Lucid to produce up to 400,000 vehicles annually.
It remains to be seen how large the Saudi Arabian factory could be and how many vehicles it could produce each year.
The forthcoming Lucid Air will kick off from $72,500 after the $7,500 federal tax credit. Slotting above the base model will be the Air Touring starting at $85,700, while the Air Grand Touring and Air Dream Edition, both landing this year, are priced from $131,500 and $161,500 respectively (all prices after the federal tax credit).
