Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund is set to invest $1 billion in electric carmaker Lucid Motors Inc. – the rival of Tesla. Saudi Arabia had previously been known to extend a helping hand to Tesla Motors. Tesla CEO Elon Musk announced through a tweet on 7 August that Saudi Arabia has acquired 5% shares of Tesla while it planned to make the publicly owned company private. Saudi Arabia, however, did not second the ill-famed tweet ‘Funding Secured’, thus the CEO on 24 August announced the company will remain public.
Lucid, an 11-year-old silicon valley based startup, plans to compete Tesla with its first sedan model, the Air. For that to happen they needed a good amount of funding which they just secured. This will help them to construct their factory in Casa Grande, Arizona.
Lucid Air will take time to complete but once out it will surely give a very tough time to Tesla and most other electric automakers. The base model will just be offering 400 horsepower with a 240 miles range. However, the range-topping will have an enormous 1,000 horsepower with a 400 miles range. The price will start at $52,500 and go north of $100,000. Lucid will produce 130,000 vehicles annually by 2022.
Investment in Lucid Motors indicates that the world’s biggest oil exporter wishes to decrease its dependency on oil, after the collapse of crude prices and constant fluctuation. The kingdom wants to turn its Public Investment Fund into the world’s biggest sovereign fund by 2030, controlling more than $2 trillion.