Tesla competitor Lucid Motors gets $1 billion investment from Saudi Arabia

(Image credit: TIMOTHY A. CLARY/AFP/Getty Images)

published 17 September 2018

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.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

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.

Explore More

Summer Meza has worked at The Week since 2018, serving as a staff writer, a news writer and currently the deputy editor. As a proud news generalist, she edits everything from political punditry and science news to personal finance advice and film reviews. Summer has previously written for Newsweek and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, covering national politics, transportation and the cannabis industry.

Subscribe to The Week

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

Sign up for Today's Best Articles in your inbox