US EV maker Lucid has announced the start-up of its second advanced manufacturing plant (AMP-2) in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia (KSA). The Kingdom’s sovereign wealth fund the PIF owns a share of just over 60pc in Lucid and the US firm has a substantial delivery contract to the country.
AMP-2 “represents a shared commitment to accelerate the adoption of sustainable mobility by making the most advanced electric cars in the world”, Lucid says. The firm will partially assemble vehicles at its Casa Grande, AZ plant and complete them in KSA .
“Increasing amount of our production volume will be coming from KSA as we finish out the year”, the firm’s CFO Sherry House said at Q2 results in August. The firm has signed a deal with the Saudis for the delivery of 50,000 cars and the option for doubling that over the next ten years.
“We expect Q4 to be our largest quarter of the year as we ramp sales to customers in Saudi Arabia,” House continued on the Q2s, as well as ramping up its Lucid Air Pure all-wheel drive and introducing a more affordable Aire Pure rear-wheel drive option this month.
US financial services firm Cantor Fitzgerald projects initial orders to KSA to be modest in 2023, then growing gradually. “In our model, we expect initial orders to Saudi Arabia to be roughly 1,200 in 2024, and to increase to 4,000-8,200 annually over 2025-32,” says Andres Sheppard, an analyst at the firm.
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