Saudi Arabia is the world’s largest oil producer, and a few years ago it announced that it wanted to transform its economy by the end of the decade. Vision 2030 is based on “a vibrant society, a prosperous economy and an ambitious nation”. Development of the financial sector, digitization and privatization program of state-owned properties to attract foreign investment, and the vision includes a plan to make the Kingdom number one in the production of electric cars. This is possible thanks to the huge investment capacity achieved through the sale of gas and oil, and recently the Kingdom signed an agreement with Lucid Group on the construction of the first ever facility for the production of electric vehicles in KSA.
Representatives of Saudi Arabia stated that this is only the beginning of what can be expected in the future, and the opening of the first Lucid Group factory will enable the realization of the recently signed agreement with the Government of Saudi Arabia on the sale of 100,000 vehicles in the next decade. The factory will be built in Jeddah and will have a capacity of 150,000 vehicles per year.
“Saudi Arabia is on track to become a global leader in electric vehicles, aligning with its ambitious carbon reduction and renewable energy targets,” said Michael Perschke, CEO of German electric vehicle company Quantron AG.
Mordor Intelligence is a market research company, and according to their research, the market in the Middle East and Africa region will double in the next four years from the current $40.25 million to $93.10 million.
How serious the Kingdom is in its intentions to become a leader in the production of electric vehicles is also shown by the first Saudi brand of electric vehicles, Ceer, which was launched by the Saudi State Fund in cooperation with the Taiwanese company Foxconn. The plan is to produce 170,000 Ceer vehicles per year.
In 2021, the Saudi authorities pointed out that they want 30 percent of vehicles in Riyadh to be electric by the end of the decade, and according to Goldman Sachs, half of the sales of new cars worldwide by 2035 will be EVs.
Source: Lucid Group