Saudi Arabia invests $ 1 billion in Lucid, a potential Tesla rival

Saudi Arabia has agreed to invest more than a billion dollars in Lucid, a potential competitor of Tesla.

Lucid is planning a new high-performance electric car. The Saudi sovereign fund investment announced on Monday will allow it to finish engineering its first car, the Lucid Air, and build a plant in Casa Grande, Arizona, and begin to sell the car by 2020.

Saudi Arabia is already a big investor in You're here (TSLA). Last month, Tesla CEO Elon Musk revealed that the Saudis had taken a stake of nearly 5% in his electric car company. Musk said the Saudis had been urging him for nearly two years to take Tesla privately, offering to provide the necessary funds to do so. (Musk announced plans to go private in August but quickly dropped the idea.)

Saudi Arabia is investing in electric vehicles to diversify and avoid reliance on oil.

Lucid's chief technology officer, Peter Rawlinson, was previously vice president and chief vehicle engineer at Tesla. He helped design the Model S, the revolutionary car of the company. He left Tesla in 2012 shortly after Model S went into production.

Rawlinson said the Lucid Air will have luxury features that the Model S lacks. He said that there will be more interior space and rear seats at 55 degrees.

"I believe that no one has really fully exploited the benefits of electrification," he said on Quest Means Business on CNN. "It gives a lot of space for more comfort and luxury."

The performance of The Lucid Air should be comparable to, or better than, the Tesla Model S.

The Lucid website says it will have a range of over 400 miles on a single charge, compared to 335 miles for the longest model. just behind the 2.28-second record set by Model S. The Lucid Air made its public debut at the New York Auto Show in 2017.

The company has not yet started construction of the Arizona plant. He did not disclose the cost of the factory. According to Derek Jenkins, vice president of the company's design, the starting price for the air is expected to be around $ 60,000. And he said he expected, after the initial start-up period, that the company would be able to build and sell about 40,000 cars worldwide.

CNNMoney (New York) First published on September 17, 2018: 4:33 PM ET