Saudi Arabia is set to become a hub for electric vehicle (EV) manufacturing within the next few years. Speaking at Davos to the regional daily Al-Sharq Al-Awsat, Saudi Investment Minister Khalid Al-Falih shared the news that the kingdom will become an automotive manufacturing hub that will produce 500,000 EVs annually by 2030.
The goal of producing half a million EVs follows a raft of automotive manufacturing announcements over the past twelve months. In May 2022, Lucid publicly stated its intention to assemble EVs locally. This was followed by the launch of Ceer, the first Saudi EV brand. At the end of 2022, Hyundai signed a memorandum of understanding to explore opportunities to build an automotive assembly plant in the country.
The automotive sector is a strategic sector for the Public Investment Fund and is a key pillar supporting Saudi Vision 2030. Today, nearly all the cars in the kingdom are imported; the creation of a national automotive industry will promote import substitution, boost non-oil GDP growth and employment, and help transfer cutting-edge technologies and knowledge. EVs are also crucial to meeting the country’s objective of net zero carbon emissions by 2060 as part of its Saudi Green Initiative strategy.
Saudi-based EV car production will contribute to attracting local and international investments and help to establish the Kingdom as a global supply chain destination. Today, the focus is on building an automotive manufacturing cluster in King Abdullah Economic City, north of Jeddah. By 2030, expect that this latest addition to the country’s industrial capabilities will add tens of thousands of high-tech jobs, attract significant foreign direct investment, and transform the country into an automotive exporter.
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