Written by Cláudio Afonso | LinkedIn | X
In September 2023, Lucid Motors opened its first manufacturing plant outside the United States in Saudi Arabia. The facility started operations with Semi-Knocked Down (SKD) assembly, using vehicle kits pre-manufactured at Lucid’s main factory in Arizona.
Nearly a year ago, in January 2024, the company began construction on an expansion to transform the plant into a Complete Build Unit (CBU) facility.
In a new interview with local media, Lucid‘s Vice President, Managing Director of Lucid Middle East Faisal Sultan said the California-based EV maker is “on track to produce over 10,000 vehicles annually” in Saudi Arabia adding the production schedules will be adjusted depending on the demand from overseas markets.
“We are on track to produce over 10,000 vehicles annually. If necessary, this number can exceed that, but we are monitoring demand in various global regions. Based on that, we can adjust our production schedules,” Sultan told the media outlet Assayyarat.
“We launched it last year with a capacity of 5,000 vehicles annually. As we expand into all GCC markets, we’ll be able to utilize this capacity more effectively. The Saudi facility operates on an SKD (Semi Knocked Down) basis, with vehicle components shipped from Arizona and assembled in Jeddah.
The executive explained that progress “has been gradual” as Lucid “prioritizes training the Saudi workforce, including transferring them to Arizona for hands-on assembly training to become integral to the manufacturing process.”
In early 2022—when announcing the project— Lucid projected that its manufacturing plant in Saudi Arabia could generate up to $3.4 billion in value over a 15-year period with annual production reaching 150,000 at its peak.
“We are definitely going to the wider GCC [Gulf Cooperation Council] market, MENA [Middle East and North Africa] market, you know, and the world, some other selected markets where we will export out of there,” Sultan said referring to Lucid‘s assembly plant in Saudi Arabia.
The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) includes six Arab countries – Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates.
The stake of Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF) in Lucid has recently surpassed 60%.
Currently, Lucid has three studios in the Middle East region including one in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, and two in Saudi Arabia, located in Riyadh and Jeddah.
Written by Cláudio Afonso | LinkedIn | X
