Lucid Motors has always been deemed as a Tesla rival on home grounds. It announced its Lucid Air sedan at the end of 2016, which is based on the Tesla Model S and starts at $60,000. In September 2018, Lucid Motors received a $1 billion investment from the Saudi Arabia Public Investment Fund (PIF), which will allow it to fund the $240m cost of building the first phase of its factory in Arizona, USA, and Lucid Air's mass production program continued. However, this funding still needs to be approved by the US government, which causes massive delays.Recently, Lucid Motors CTO Peter Rawlinson talked tohinting that it might build a factory in Saudi Arabia. The news has also been announced by SAPRAC - the Saudi American Public Relation Affairs Committee on Twitter . Whether this is because of the delay in receiving the investment in the US remains speculation - no reason for this shift is provided. Rawlinson said he sees Lucid Motor's partnership with Saudi Arabia as "long-term" and that its mission to build "the best car in the world" is well underway. He continued saying that such a project is ints "early days" but offers many opportunities. Here's an assorted group of Rawlinson citations from its interview with"We'd love to do that … We're currently in a period where we are investigating all these options," he said. "There is a vision that there will be some sort of production facility in the future.""We are undertaking the appropriate studies, but I’m really excited about the potential of this. This partnership is huge for us; we can benefit the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in a significant, meaningful and long-term manner.""One of the great assets of the Kingdom is its endless reserves of sunshine, and how that can be harvested with solar energy. We’re a battery-storage technology company; that's a way we could contribute. We’re exploring a number of avenues along those lines.""We don't see Tesla as a key, direct competitor. We see the German gasoline cars - the petrol engine cars … as our core competitive set," he said. "I've spoken to many people … who would gladly buy an electric car but say they're not going to give up their Mercedes-Benz to buy a Tesla because of the interior. You've only got to step inside a Tesla to realize it's not true luxury." Source