Sept. 21, 2026 shows the launch event for CEER s first electric vehicles in King Abdullah Economic City, Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia has oil, capital and one of the Gulf region’s largest automotive markets. What it has largely lacked until now is a domestic car industry. That is about to change. With the Exobot, newly created brand Ceer has unveiled its first vehicles. But behind the futuristic sedan and SUV lies a much bigger project: the kingdom no longer wants to primarily import cars and finance international manufacturers. It wants to develop, manufacture and build a local supplier industry of its own.
The Exobot is above all an industrial statement
At 5.26 metres long, powered by three electric motors and delivering 850 horsepower with a targeted range of up to 600 kilometres, Saudi Arabia’s first homegrown automotive brand is not starting small.
Ceer has presented an electric luxury sedan and a large SUV under the Exobot name. Both are to be manufactured in King Abdullah Economic City on Saudi Arabia’s west coast. Production is scheduled to begin in the fourth quarter of 2026, with first deliveries planned for spring 2027.
Prices have not yet been announced.
The sedan is expected to accelerate from zero to 100 kilometres per hour in 2.6 seconds, according to the company, while the SUV should take 2.9 seconds. A 112-kilowatt-hour battery is designed to provide a range of around 600 kilometres. The vehicles will also feature an 800-volt electrical system, charging rates of up to 250 kilowatts, rear-wheel steering and fully electronic steer-by-wire technology.
Among their most striking features are almost three-metre-long roof-hinged »Shahin Wing« doors. The cars have also been designed with Gulf conditions in mind. Ceer promises particularly powerful air conditioning and heat-reflective glazing.
As a prestige object, the Exobot certainly delivers. Economically, however, the more interesting question is how the car came into existence in the first place.
Saudi capital, Taiwanese electronics and German technology
Ceer was founded in 2022 as a joint venture between Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, or PIF, and Taiwanese electronics giant Foxconn.
Foxconn is developing the vehicles’ electrical architecture. Ceer has also licensed component technology from BMW for use in vehicle development. Around this core, the company has built an international supplier network including Hyundai Transys, Rimac, Siemens, Lear, Benteler, Dürr and other established automotive specialists.
For a newcomer, this strategy is not unusual. A modern car brand is no longer simply a combination of engine, battery and bodywork. Electronics, software, drivetrain components, seats, chassis systems, glass, manufacturing equipment and production technology are sourced from a broad network of specialist companies even by long-established automakers.
Saudi Arabia, however, faces an additional challenge: much of the industrial ecosystem still has to be built locally.
Ceer now employs around 2,300 people. By 2034, the company wants 45 percent of its value creation to take place inside Saudi Arabia. It also aims for Saudi nationals to account for 80 percent of its direct workforce. The vehicle is therefore also a tool for transferring industrial know-how.
Not the first car made in Saudi Arabia – but the first Saudi brand
One distinction is important. Ceer is not producing the first car ever manufactured in Saudi Arabia.
US electric-car maker Lucid opened an assembly plant in King Abdullah Economic City in 2023. Initially, vehicles were assembled there from components pre-manufactured in the United States. The facility is now being expanded towards full production. Lucid describes it as the kingdom’s first automotive manufacturing plant.
Ceer represents something different: the first Saudi automotive brand created with the ambition to develop, engineer, manufacture, sell and service vehicles from within the kingdom. Economically, that difference matters.
A foreign-owned factory creates jobs and industrial experience. A domestic brand can additionally keep development, procurement, distribution, intellectual property and a larger share of value creation inside the country. At least, that is the plan.
The automotive industry is meant to reduce dependence on oil
Ceer forms part of Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 strategy, which aims to diversify the kingdom’s economy. The starting point is paradoxical.
Saudi Arabia is one of the world’s most important oil producers, and much of its economic transformation is being financed by revenues from exactly that commodity. That capital is now being used to build industries designed to generate additional sources of income in the future.
The automotive sector is particularly attractive because its economic impact extends far beyond the car itself. Steel and aluminium, chemicals, plastics, electronics, batteries, logistics, software, engineering and a wide range of services are all connected to vehicle production.
Saudi Arabia’s industrial strategy envisages vehicle production capacity of roughly 280,000 to 300,000 units annually by 2030, alongside a higher degree of localisation throughout the supply chain.
Ceer and Lucid are not the only pieces of the plan. Hyundai is also developing a manufacturing facility in Saudi Arabia, while the PIF is attempting to create a broader automotive cluster with suppliers and supporting infrastructure. Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 reporting specifically identifies Ceer, Lucid, Hyundai and Pirelli as elements of this emerging industrial ecosystem.
30,000 jobs and billions in economic output
The scale of Saudi Arabia’s expectations becomes clear in the PIF’s projections.
By 2034, Ceer is expected to contribute $8 billion directly to Saudi Arabia’s GDP and improve the country’s trade balance by around $21 billion. The project is also intended to create around 30,000 direct and indirect jobs.
These figures are targets published by Ceer’s owner, not independent forecasts. Whether they can be achieved will depend on whether the company manages to sell vehicles at scale, attract suppliers to Saudi Arabia and genuinely localise a substantial share of its value creation. For a new automotive brand, none of that is guaranteed.
The past several years have demonstrated just how capital-intensive it is to create a carmaker from scratch. Vehicle development, factories, distribution networks and service infrastructure consume billions long before sufficient production volumes are reached.
Many electric-vehicle start-ups have consequently been forced to scale back their original growth ambitions or abandon them altogether.
Ceer is trying to reduce that risk through a combination of sovereign-state financing, established technology partners and an initially regional expansion strategy.
The second step will be harder than the first
That is one reason Ceer is not rushing into global expansion. The domestic Saudi market comes first. Additional markets across the region are expected to follow from 2028. Broader international expansion would come later.
Chief executive Jim DeLuca has pointed to the mistakes made by other EV start-ups that attempted to scale production and enter international markets too quickly.
By 2030, Ceer plans to offer seven models. The two large Exobot variants are expected to be followed by mid-sized and compact vehicles. The company and the PIF have also begun referring to different powertrain technologies within Ceer’s future portfolio. Reuters has reported that this could include plug-in hybrids and combustion-engine vehicles alongside fully electric models.
That marks a notable shift. Ceer was launched in 2022 explicitly as an electric-vehicle company. Four years later, its strategy already reflects the reality that the global transition to electric mobility is progressing at very different speeds from one region to another.
You can buy a car brand – but not an automotive industry
Capital is probably the least difficult part of this project. Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund can finance factories, recruit international executives, license technology and acquire stakes in companies.
Much harder is creating what established automotive regions have built over decades: experienced engineers, specialised suppliers, development expertise, production discipline and manufacturing processes capable of producing hundreds of thousands of reliable vehicles.
The fact that Ceer is relying on BMW, Foxconn, Siemens, Dürr, Rimac and other international partners does not contradict Saudi Arabia’s ambition to establish its own automotive industry.
It shows how such an industry can be created today. Not through complete national self-sufficiency, but by combining knowledge that already exists around the world – and gradually anchoring more of it at home.
The Exobot will still have to prove that customers are willing to buy a new automotive brand from Saudi Arabia. For the kingdom, however, much more is at stake than the success of a single model.
Saudi Arabia spent decades importing cars with money earned from oil. Now it wants to become a country that develops, builds and eventually exports some of them itself.
SK
