California-headquartered EV maker Lucid Group Inc. (NASDAQ:LCID) has received an operating license to start car production in Saudi Arabia.
What Happened: The license allows for production within the Special Economic Zone of King Abdullah Economic City, or KAEC.
“We congratulate Lucid Motors for achieving a remarkable milestone of receiving the operating license to commence car production operations in KAEC at one of the Special Economic Zones paving the road towards a new era of sustainable electric vehicle manufacturing,” KAEC wrote on X, formerly called Twitter.
Though Lucid operates in the U.S., Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF) is the majority stockholder of the company.
Why It Matters: During Lucid’s second quarter earnings call in August, CEO Peter Rawlinson said that the company plans to have an opening ceremony for its manufacturing facility in Saudi in September.
“We’re incredibly excited about this official opening of our second Lucid factory and our first manufacturing facility outside of the United States,” Rawlinson said then. Deliveries from the initial facility, called the SKD facility, will start in the third quarter, he had added. The SKD facility is part of Lucid’s larger AMP-2 campus, which is expected to have a production capacity of 155,000 units per year at full-scale.
Lucid has a purchase agreement with the government of Saudi Arabia to sell up to 100,000 vehicles over the next 10 years. This also includes vehicles built and assembled at the company’s existing Arizona factory.
Several vehicles have already been shipped to Saudi. Though these vehicles were planned for delivery before Eid and summer holidays, there was a delay due to supplier issues. These deliveries to customers and the government of Saudi Arabia are expected to ramp in the third and fourth quarter, Rawlinson added.
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