Saudi Arabia funds Lucid and builds its rival at the same timeAwkward: Saudi Arabia’s new EV brand takes on the U.S. rival it already controls

Saudi Arabia's sovereign fund has put about $8 billion into Lucid and owns 58% of it, yet its own EV brand Ceer just unveiled two models aimed squarely at Lucid's luxury segment.

Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund is playing investor and competitor at once. On September 21, Ceer — majority-owned by the fund — showed two electric models, with deliveries promised for March 2027 from a plant in King Abdullah Economic City, north of Jeddah.

Not a new bet, but a third one

PIF first bought about 5% of Tesla in 2018 and sold almost all of it within a year. Then it put roughly $8 billion into California-based Lucid, which has never turned a profit.

This year Lucid's market value shrank to about $1.6 billion. It has a new CEO, has cut about a fifth of its U.S. workforce, ended the second shift at its Arizona plant, and recalled 27,000 sedans over a fire risk.

At home in Saudi Arabia, Lucid's sales fell 57% in the first seven months of 2026 while BYD's rose 369%. Bill Russo of the consultancy Automobility puts it plainly: Lucid is a global luxury brand to be protected, while Ceer's mandate is different — to grow a domestic auto industry from nothing.

The cars exist; the buyers are the question

Ceer's most powerful version promises over 1,100 horsepower, close to the 1,234 hp of Lucid's fastest car, the Air Sapphire. No prices yet, but the direction is clear: Lucid's premium territory, not BYD's mass market.

The problem is capacity. Ceer's factory is designed for up to 240,000 vehicles a year, and Lucid already runs a smaller plant in the kingdom. Joseph Salem of Arthur D. Little estimates their combined full-capacity targets at roughly ten times what Saudi buyers can absorb near term.

Saudi Arabia sells almost a million new vehicles a year, of which only 10,000 to 40,000 are electric. So more than 80% of output has to be exported — that was the plan from the start. But Chinese cars already hold about 60% of Middle East EV sales, and Tesla about 15%.

Ceer's motors come from Croatia's Rimac and Hyundai Transys, its platform from Foxconn, and some component technology is licensed from BMW. Russo warns that a newcomer cannot simply license its way to BYD's cost advantage.