Lucid Motors is coming for Tesla — with a little help from Saudi Arabia.
Saudi Arabia's sovereign wealth fund invested $1 billion in Lucid, CNBC reported Monday, giving the Tesla competitor a kick-start in its effort to launch its first electric vehicle.
The electric car startup is working to make the Lucid Air vehicle available by 2020. It will develop and test models in a new Arizona factory. Lucid executive Peter Rawlinson told Automotive News last year that the company didn't want to roll out a mere Tesla knock-off. "This is not another Model S," he said. "This is the next-generation electric car."
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Rawlinson, former chief engineer at Tesla, has boasted that the Lucid Air will be more compact than Tesla models, but with a more spacious interior. "That's what makes it revolutionary," he said. Preliminary estimates say the entry-level model would have a 240-mile range and would cost around $60,000, before tax credits, reports The Verge. Tesla's Model S, meanwhile, costs about $70,000 and has a range of 250 miles.
Lucid has long been seen as a top contender to take on Tesla's role in the luxury electric car market, and their similarities even carry over to funding: Tesla CEO Elon Musk said last month that possible Saudi investment could help him take his company private, but those plans dissolved soon afterward. Read more at CNBC.
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