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Middle East war and the midsize

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gaskiller

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Wondering if the war will delay midsize release and production. If a few weeks, shouldn't be a problem, but if war continues for 2-3 months, that would be a big problem.
 
Hard to say. But I would encourage everyone to avoid wildly speculating. Better to wait and see what Lucid actually says on the matter. Which will likely be little.

More importantly, if we're going to have this discussion, stick to Lucid only and avoid the tendency to fall down the pit of politics.

Read the guidelines and stick to them, folks.

This forum is about Lucid. Leave the war / geopolitical debate for other forums.
 
gaskiller said:
Wondering if the war will delay midsize release and production. If a few weeks, shouldn't be a problem, but if war continues for 2-3 months, that would be a big problem.
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In general, war is not good for business unless you are in the defense industry.

Since Lucid doesn't make all the car parts in Saudi, free flow of the production chain is important.

Currently, the air space and the strait of hormuz are closed. Three jet fighters were accidently shot down in Kuwait because of friendly fires. The US navy can escort oil tankers but that sounds too risky to be commercially practical.

There's an alternative to reroute to the Red Sea that the Houthis have not attacked the ships since the October Israel/Gaza peace deal. However, the condition is changed as now the US is bombing Iran for the next 4 weeks or indefinitely.

If the Iranian weapons are not exhausted, the priority in Saudi Arabia might be to maintain the infrastructure damaged by the drones and missiles strike.

All US citizens and residents are ordered to be evacuated from14 countries including the Saudi Arabia.

Current conditions do not help to move the supply chain or the security of factories and workers in the region.

There's no crystal ball to project when the US has met its objectives of obliterating Iran nuclear program 8 months ago and still obliterating that same obliterated program right now.
 
The_Don said:
Given their factory is on the Red Sea, I'd be surprised if their supplies were being routed via the strait of hormuz, though agreed re the Houthi risk.
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Specifically, this is the location of Lucid in King Abdullah Economic City:

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Find local businesses, view maps and get driving directions in Google Maps.
maps.app.goo.gl maps.app.goo.gl

It's very close to the King Abdullah port, which is well positioned for shipping through the Suez Canal to European markets, but does have the problem of routing through the Gulf of Aden for access to Asia. It's also not close to the border with Yemen.
 
The_Don said:
Given their factory is on the Red Sea, I'd be surprised if their supplies were being routed via the strait of hormuz, though agreed re the Houthi risk.
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Good point, I didn't realize that. Maybe thats why they located the economic city in that area.
 
When did they say production would begin, and will the Cosmos only be built in Saudi Arabia?
 
Em001 said:
When did they say production would begin, and will the Cosmos only be built in Saudi Arabia?
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Production in Saudi Arabia will start by the end of the year, Lucid has not provided a date for production to start in the US.
 
Adnillien said:
Production in Saudi Arabia will start by the end of the year, Lucid has not provided a date for production to start in the US.
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In one of the interviews around investor day someone said the plan was to spend 6 months standing up the production line in SA before sending that same engineering team back to the states to stand up the production line in the US. That was the plan months ago before the new CEO.
 
T4zi114 said:
In one of the interviews around investor day someone said the plan was to spend 6 months standing up the production line in SA before sending that same engineering team back to the states to stand up the production line in the US. That was the plan months ago before the new CEO.
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While this is the plan that Lucid has stated, I don't think it is a very wise plan. Launching a new model in a new factory that has not built anything except semi-knockdowns is not a winning strategy. AMP-1 in Casa Grande does not have a good track record for launching new models either but I cannot help but think it would be worse in KSA. The Saudi PIF may be pushing Lucid to do this, but it is not a good strategy. AMP-1 is not yet ready for midsize since Lucid is still building out the midsize body in white factory expansion. Lucid does not have a good option. They can launch in a new factory or delay the launch and do it in Casa Grande. Neither is a great option.
 
Exactly, it's not a viable plan unless they plan on spending orders of magnitude more on their plant and workforce. Quick math says the US has roughly a 10x larger skilled laborforce. You're training almost all of them from scratch for the Lucid plants in KSA, because no sane individual with prior automotive experience would move themselves and their families to the middle east. I would say temporarily relocation of workers to get production up to speed is the best case scenario if the PIF heavily juiced up the relocation bonuses and salaries.

It is however a respectable plan and certainly a lot more viable than say The Line horizontal skyscraper project. But they're going to have to pay top dollar for patriotic homegrown automotive, and even then it's going be a slow production because of talent search and workforce training.
 
Auto assembly line workers are not "skilled labor". Most positions require no more than two week's training. Skilled labor is a machinist or electrician.
 
babylou66 said:
Auto assembly line workers are not "skilled labor". Most positions require no more than two week's training. Skilled labor is a machinist or electrician.
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still need a lot of skilled labour for planning, diagnosing, maintaining the tooling, logistics, etc.

I can't recall if it was from an industry presentation, the investor day, or a quarterly investor call, but I do remember Marc Winterhoff (I think) saying that the same team setting up the tooling and manufacturing for midsize in the Saudi Arabia plant will also be the ones setting up midsize's manufacturing line in the US. So it sounds like they're putting as many resources as they can to make sure midsize manufacturing goes well
 
minivanasatruck said:
It is however a respectable plan and certainly a lot more viable than say The Line horizontal skyscraper project. But they're going to have to pay top dollar for patriotic homegrown automotive, and even then it's going be a slow production because of talent search and workforce training.
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There's about 9 million foreign workers in SA and they don't get paid "top dollar" but they don't have to pay income tax to the government of SA (they have none)
according to wikipedia:

Infrastructure and development plans led to an influx of skilled and unskilled workers, principally Palestinians, Egyptians, Yemenis and others from Arab countries, but also Indians and Pakistanis, leading to a doubling of the Saudi population by 1985. Beginning in the early 1980s, South and East Asian countries, such as Thailand, Philippines, and South Korea, increasingly provided migrant workers
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to add- the education system is based on religion and rote learning so "menial work" is not desired by residents

Although the country's reliance on foreign workers has been a concern to the Saudi government since the mid-1950s,Foreign_workers_in_Saudi_Arabia the situation has persisted because of a reluctance by Saudis to take on menial work and a shortage of Saudi candidates for skilled jobs This has, in part, been blamed on the Saudi education system, which has been criticized for its emphasis on religion and rote learning. The Saudi economy has, therefore, remained dependent on Westerners for expertise in specialised industries and on the Asian workforce for the construction industry as well as for menial and unskilled tasks
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