American electric vehicle manufacturer Lucid Group has revealed its plans to begin the production of electric cars in Saudi Arabia in 2024.
According to the statement, the electric vehicle behemoth has applied for a Saudi model Certificate of Accreditation. This announcement was made by Mr. Saud Al-Askar, deputy governor of the Saudi Standards, Metrology and Quality Organization (SASO).
The Kingdom’s sovereign wealth fund, the Public Investment Fund (PIF), owns a majority stake in Lucid, whose shares began trading on the US NASDAQ Stock Market last month. Lucid is Telsa’s American competitor, and PIF has benefited from its early investment, owning around 62 percent of the company’s shares.
The PIF has made a profit of more than $22 billion from its investment in Lucid in Nasdaq. The IPO of Lucid is a tremendous win for PIF, which invested over $1 billion in the firm in 2018 for a significant share.
Lucid, which has yet to generate revenue, intends to deliver its first Lucid Air in the second half of this year, with prices starting at $69,000 after tax credits. The EV manufacturer also expects the Lucid Air to outperform the Tesla Model S.
According to Lucid’s offering to investors, the Lucid will have a range of more than 4.5 miles per kilowatt-hour, which is more than that of the Tesla Model S (more than 4 miles/KwH). This translates to a range of more than 517 miles for the Lucid, which is about 26 percent more than the Tesla Model S.
SASO recently disclosed that it had received multiple requests for Certificate of Accreditation for electric vehicles that are compliant with their technical regulations from electric vehicle manufacturers.
According to SASO sources, the organization is still working on introducing technical requirements for issuing Certificate of Conformity (CoC) for electric vehicles, chargers, and their accessories. “It asked all car dealers and manufacturers to follow the Saudi model Certificate of Accreditation requirements,” as per the reports.
