Saudi Arabia Invests $1 Billion In Potential Tesla Rival (cnn.com)

Saudi Arabia is investing more than $1 billion in Lucid Motors, an electric car startup that may give Tesla a run for their money. CNN reports: Lucid is planning a new high-performance electric car. It said the investment from Saudi Arabia's sovereign wealth fund announced Monday will allow it to finish engineering on its first car, the Lucid Air, as well as build a factory in Casa Grande, Arizona, and begin to sell the car by 2020. Saudi Arabia is already a big investor in Tesla. Last month Tesla CEO Elon Musk disclosed that the Saudis had taken nearly a 5% stake in his electric car company.

Musk said that the Saudis had been urging him for almost two years to take Tesla private, offering to provide funds necessary to do so. (Musk announced the plan to go private in August but quickly dropped the idea.) Saudi Arabia is investing in electric vehicles to diversify away from its dependence on oil. Lucid's Chief Technology Officer, Peter Rawlinson, was formerly a vice president and chief vehicle engineer at Tesla. He helped design the Model S, the company's breakthrough car. He left Tesla in 2012, shortly after the Model S went into production.

Comments

Re:I smell a rat

[Barsteward]

"oil production is the #1 strategic concern of Saudi Arabia, and electric cars are their anathema."

yes, oil currently is their no #1, but they are pouring money into renewables, they see the future better than Trump

https://www.bloomberg.com/news...

Re:Jihad

[CrimsonAvenger]

Has anyone considered a possible ulterior motive? Imagine if the jihadis got ahold of self-driving vehicles.

"electric car" is NOT synonymous with "self-driving car". Yes, you can have a self-driving gasoline-engine car. Yes, the jihadis could use one of those, too....