Several Saudi social media accounts claimed on Sunday that Lucid had produced its first vehicle fully manufactured in Saudi Arabia, a milestone the company has not announced and that its own schedule is not set before next year.
The Saudi-backed EV maker said in early August that even prototypes will not come off its new AMP-2 production line north of Jeddah until early 2027, with full production of its Cosmos midsize model to follow in the second half of that year.
Lucid Motors Middle East’s X account had not mentioned the milestone by early Monday. The company’s global X account also carried no such announcement.
How the Claim Spread
The economic city’s X account ‘kaec_saudi’ posted on Sunday that Lucid had “recorded a historic achievement by producing the first car made in Saudi Arabia.”
“Lucid achieved a historic milestone by producing the first car manufactured in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia,” the post reads. “Since the opening of semi-knocked-down (SKD) assembly operations in #King_Abdullah_Economic_City in 2023, it has produced thousands of vehicles in the Kingdom.”
Lucid had already described AMP-2 as Saudi Arabia’s first car manufacturing facility when it opened the plant in September 2023.
A video attached to the post, titled “Lucid Motors in King Abdullah Economic City,” carries a slide reading “Full manufacturing of vehicles begins in 2027,” contradicting the announcement.
Other slides say Saudi nationals make up more than 70% of Lucid’s workforce in the kingdom and that vehicles made at the economic city reach customers outside Saudi Arabia, without giving export figures.
The account ‘SaudiProject’, which covers Saudi development projects, later posted that Lucid had produced its first car “fully manufactured in Saudi Arabia.”
Separately, Jeddah news account ‘JeddahNow’ posted that Lucid had produced its first car “with full manufacturing in Saudi Arabia.” The post includes pictures of a Lucid Air on the assembly line.
Lucid’s Own Timeline
Lucid has said the first vehicle built from start to finish at AMP-2 will be the Cosmos, its first midsize model, not the Air.
The plant will be “ready for production in early 2027” and “ready to run midsize production in the second half of the year,” Chief Executive Officer Silvio Napoli said on the second-quarter earnings call on August 4.
That pushed the start of local production back by about a year from Lucid’s earlier “late 2026” target.
He described the Cosmos as “the first vehicle produced at” the new factory.
Asked when prototypes would come off the Saudi line, Napoli said they would start “in early 2027, and the full AMP production will be in the second part,” according to a transcript of the call.
Napoli said he had visited the plant in April and found that “all buildings are functional, manufacturing systems installation and equipment testing is happening across stamping, body, paint, and final assembly in preparation for production trials.”
Asked about the remaining milestones, Napoli said that within Lucid’s control “the only thing missing is the industrialization testing of the different parts of the production line,” with paint, body-in-white and finishing “now into final testing with the different suppliers.”
“We’re also evaluating supply localization timelines and identifying actions to mitigate potential delays,” he said, adding that Saudi authorities were helping to advance road, water, electrical and telecom infrastructure.
Cosmos prototypes are being built on pilot lines in Coolidge, Arizona, and Napoli said there would be “an interesting technology transfer” from Coolidge to Saudi Arabia.
Lucid bought the Coolidge site from bankrupt truck maker Nikola in 2025.
Chief Financial Officer Taoufiq Boussaid said an additional $800 million drawn from Lucid’s delayed-draw term loan after the quarter would provide flexibility “as we complete the construction of our AMP-2 factory and prepare for the launch and ramp of our Midsize platform.”
Napoli said Lucid would give an update on AMP-2 readiness with its third-quarter results in November.
A complete build unit plant stamps, welds and paints bodies and assembles the vehicle on site, while kit assembly puts together vehicles from largely pre-built components shipped from elsewhere.
Faisal Sultan, Lucid’s President of Middle East, wrote in April that construction of the complete build unit factory was on track to finish by the end of 2026, and that it was designed to scale to about 150,000 vehicles a year.
Three Years of Kit Assembly
Lucid opened AMP-2 on September 27, 2023, with semi-knocked-down assembly, re-assembling Air vehicle kits pre-manufactured at its factory in Casa Grande, Arizona, with an initial capacity of 5,000 vehicles a year.
Sultan said in December 2023 that the plant had assembled almost 800 cars since opening, according to Reuters.
The economic city’s post did not give an exact total or say how many of the “thousands of vehicles” were Air or Gravity kits.
Lucid has since assembled the Gravity SUV at the site from imported kits as well.
In May 2025, Lucid released images from inside the expanding plant showing robotic body handling and a paint shop, processes associated with full vehicle production rather than kit assembly.
In July 2026, Lucid’s Middle East account deleted a post celebrating “5,000 vehicles in the Kingdom,” without saying how many had been assembled locally.
Workforce and Footprint
The first cohort from the National Automotive and Vehicles Academy graduated at AMP-2 this month, ahead of Cosmos production, and Lucid Motors Middle East said on October 14 that it was continuing a training and hiring partnership with the Saudi Logistics Academy.
The ramp is meant to serve the Saudi government’s agreement to buy up to 100,000 Lucid vehicles over ten years, which Lucid expects to accelerate in 2027 once midsize production starts.
Saudi government purchases have become an important part of Lucid’s sales, with filings pointing to about 1,080 vehicles bought in the second quarter alone.
Lucid opened its first company-owned body and paint center in Riyadh earlier this month and has passed 100 chargers across Saudi Arabia.
In the first week of 2025, Lucid became the first carmaker to join the government’s “Saudi Made” program, which certifies locally produced goods.
A Crowded Cluster
Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman named the automotive zone at King Abdullah Economic City the King Salman Automotive Cluster on February 6, 2025, saying it was expected to contribute more than 92 billion riyals ($24.5 billion) to non-oil gross domestic product by 2035, according to Asharq Al-Awsat.
Lucid shares the cluster with Ceer, the Saudi EV brand backed by the Public Investment Fund and Foxconn, which unveiled its first models in September and plans to build them at the complex.
Hyundai and the Public Investment Fund broke ground on a plant in the cluster in May 2025.
The Public Investment Fund is Lucid’s majority shareholder.
