As Tesla EV Gross sales Dip, Lucid Tightens Grip

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Final Up to date on: eleventh April 2025, 11:06 am

With its EV gross sales slipping within the US and elsewhere, Tesla has determined {that a} relaunch of the model in Saudi Arabia will assist refresh its sagging picture. How’s that once more? The Saudi-backed US automaker Lucid already beat Tesla to the punch, opening a manufacturing unit in King Abdullah Financial Metropolis in Mecca Province again in 2023. In the meantime, Lucid can also be increasing its manufacturing footprint in Arizona, aiming to nudge Tesla farther down the EV gross sales market within the US. Whereas the cat’s away….

Saudi Arabia, The New Hotspot For EV Gross sales

Tesla’s relaunch in Saudi Arabia is an enormous deal as a result of the corporate has not had presence there for years, as a result of a kerfuffle over a controversial tweet issued by Tesla CEO Elon Musk all the way in which again in 2018.

For apparent causes, Saudi Arabia has by no means been a very ripe marketplace for EV gross sales, so the breakup didn’t have a noticeable affect on Tesla. The large query is why Tesla has all of the sudden determined that Saudi Arabia can be an incredible place to rev up its gross sales engine.

The reply is straightforward sufficient. The Kingdom has set an electrification objective for itself, aiming at 30% EV adoption by 2030 alongside plans to deliver its EV charging community as much as par.

Lucid Received There First

As extensively reported by the Related Press and different media, Tesla has launched a brand new showroom and repair heart in Riyadh to pitch the Mannequin 3, Mannequin Y, and Cybertruck. Pop-up shops are additionally deliberate for Riyadh, Jeddah, and Dammam.

If absence makes the center develop fonder, Tesla may do very effectively within the Kingdom. However, it’s not going to be a stroll within the park. The Chinese language automaker Geely has already carved out a distinct segment for its Riddara EVs in that market, and that automaker has growth plans within the works for 2025.

Then there’s Lucid, which has been positioning its model as a hometown hero of types partly on account of its backing from the Saudi Arabia Public Funding Fund. When PIF bankrolled Lucid in 2022, the plan included a manufacturing unit in Saudi Arabia in addition to one within the US (see extra Lucid EV background right here).

The Saudi Arabia manufacturing unit permits Lucid to outline its model as a creator of top of the range, excessive tech jobs within the Kingdom, and a centerpiece for innovation. The Saudi Arabia manufacturing unit, AMP-2, started producing automobiles in 2023, utilizing kits assembled on the Arizona facility. When AMP-2 is totally constructed out, 150,000 EVs will roll off its meeting line per 12 months, destined for markets abroad in addition to in Saudi Arabia.

Lucid Picks Up The Items Of Nikola’s Shattered Goals

In the meantime again within the US, on April 11, Lucid introduced that it’s going to carve out the BEV slice of the bankrupt truckmaker Nikola, which was auctioned off on April 10. Nikola acquired extra consideration for its ill-fated deal with Class 8 gasoline cell vans, but it surely additionally had a BEV department. The corporate tried to launch its “Badger” battery-electric pickup truck with Common Motors a number of years in the past, an association that evaporated in 2020.

Barring any unexpected obstacles, Lucid will purchase Nikola’s two amenities in Arizona, the manufacturing unit in Coolidge and its headquarters in Phoenix.

With the 2 buildings in hand, Lucid will add greater than 884,000 sq. toes to its current footprint in Arizona. “Most of this area is comprised of state-of-the-art manufacturing and warehousing buildings, which executes in opposition to Lucid’s prior deliberate growth in Arizona,” the corporate notes.

“These amenities additionally embody improvement gear with in depth battery and environmental testing chambers, a full-size chassis dynamometer, machining gear, and extra,” they add.

Together with the {hardware}, Lucid additionally goals to avail itself of an prompt workforce, providing positions to greater than 300 former Nikola staff. “These provides will embody numerous technical salaried and hourly positions together with manufacturing engineering, software program, meeting, automobile testing, and warehouse help,” Lucid elaborates.

Lucid’s worker retention plan presents a pointy distinction to the goings-on at Elon Musk’s “DOGE,” a federal workplace credited with abruptly firing hundreds of expert federal employees. “We’re delighted to increase employment provides to greater than 300 former staff, who deliver worthwhile {industry} expertise, and along with our excellent groups, will proceed powering Lucid’s industry-leading innovation,” mentioned Lucid Interim CEO Marc Winterhoff in a press assertion.

Extra EV Gross sales In The USA

As for EV gross sales associated to the Nikola acquisition, don’t maintain your breath for a Lucid Class 8 battery-electric truck. The corporate at the moment provides the Air sedan and the newly launched Gravity SUV. Winterhoff additionally used the event of the Nikola announcement to remind everybody Lucid is getting ready for its “upcoming midsize platform automobiles,” indicating that vans of any type are off the desk, no less than for now. If something, the newly expanded operation in Arizona may allow Lucid to speed up its plans for midsized EVs.

Rumors about these upcoming EVs started surfacing final fall, when the automotive media scooped plans that recommend the brand new platform is a crossover SUV to be named Earth, aimed toward competing for EV gross sales in opposition to the Tesla Mannequin Y, presumably as quickly as mannequin 12 months 2026.

That’s going to be a tricky row to hoe. Sagging gross sales apart, Tesla remains to be #1 in EV gross sales right here within the US, with nearly 50% of the US EV market. Nonetheless, that received’t final for lengthy if US automobile consumers comply with the trajectory of their counterparts in Europe. EV gross sales in Europe have been surging this 12 months, however not for Tesla, with the notable exception of the UK.

Tesla followers are pinning their hopes on the refreshed Mannequin Y. That might but show to be a lifeline, however EV consumers within the US have already turned their consideration to different manufacturers.

On April 10, Cox Automotive took a take a look at EV gross sales reported by Kelley Blue E book, noting that nearly 300,000 new EVs have been bought within the US in Q1 2025. “Roughly 7.5% of whole new-vehicle gross sales within the first quarter have been electrical automobiles, a rise from 7% a 12 months earlier,” Cox summarized.

“However the EV progress story continues to heart on market chief Tesla, which noticed gross sales fall additional in Q1, down almost 9% from year-ago ranges,” Cox added, whereas citing Acura, Audi, Chevrolet, Honda, and Porsche amongst different automakers that rode the wave of the EV shopping for spree.

Whether or not or not Tesla can win them again stays to be seen. The automaker had the zero emission mobility discipline virtually all to itself for a few years, however Musk’s means to push EV gross sales in a aggressive market was in query from the start. The unfolding Cybertruck catastrophe means that Tesla is incapable of shifting previous its primary fashions with Musk as CEO, and the “DOGE” fiasco demonstrates that he’s no genius, in any case.

Picture: The California startup Lucid Motors goals to spice up its EV gross sales footprint with a newly expanded footprint for its operations in Arizona, together with a second manufacturing unit in Saudi Arabia (courtesy of Lucid by way of CleanTechnica archive).