Faisal Sultan, the brand’s president for the region, acknowledged the slowdown in the UAE in a recent interview.
“I know UAE started very strong but it kind of slowed down,” he admitted.
The company operates one showroom in Dubai and another in Abu Dhabi’s Galleria mall.
Sultan attributed Saudi Arabia’s faster adoption to government support and visibility from the kingdom’s sovereign wealth fund, the Public Investment Fund, Lucid’s largest shareholder.
PIF currently owns a 58% stake in the company. It started investing in Lucid back in 2018.
“But I think Saudi’s investment into Lucid really brought this EV revolution up on the radar for people,” Sultan said.
“People know EVs, as Lucid Corporation we have our highest awareness in Saudi Arabia,” he added. “And that’s because people know what an electric vehicle is, what a Lucid is.”
Lucid doesn’t break out vehicle deliveries by market, but its second-quarter SEC filing showed Middle East revenue rose to $36.6 million from $7.8 million in the first quarter.
Saudi Arabia contributed $35.9 million, while the UAE accounted for about $700,000, indicating that Emirates sales remained minimal.
Sultan said the company is seeing increasing fleet demand in the Kingdom.
“We’re seeing a lot of fleet orders, we’re seeing a lot of conversions from performance-based cars into an electric-based Lucid,” he said.
He added that the brand’s second model and the upcoming mid-size platform will expand Lucid’s customer base.
“The [Lucid] Gravity market is about four times the total addressable market of Lucid Air sedan, which is a very small market,” he said.
“And then we have the midsize coming which will be another few tenfolds. So, I think that’s where the demand is going to come from,” Sultan added. “We want our retail footprint to increase in the region as we operate a little bit differently.”
Lucid launched a limited-time financing campaign in August to increase demand in the UAE, offering a 0.99 % rate for up to five years through Dubai Islamic Bank.
The package includes free first-year registration, a home charger with installation, five years or 100,000 kilometers of servicing, four years of roadside assistance, and an eight-year battery warranty.
Sultan has recently said the company aims to enter “one or two” new GCC countries per year without disclosing which markets will follow.
Later in the interview, the executive said the company is preparing to “switch” its sales approach in the new Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries.
Lucid’s shift mirrors its plans for the new markets in Europe.
The company has recently announced that it is adjusting its business model in Germany with the introduction of dealerships across Europe’s largest car market.
