Saudi Arabia launches its own EV brand with BMW parts

Saudi Arabia is the largest exporter of crude oil in the world, but the brand new car brand that will soon be active in the country will focus entirely on electric cars. Meet Ceer, a new EV brand that will use technology from BMW.

Ceer is a joint venture between Foxconn and PIF. Foxconn is a Taiwanese electronics manufacturer that you may know as a producer of iPhones, among other things, but that also wants to produce cars for third parties. Foxconn and PIF, the Saudi investment fund Public Investment Fund headed by none other than Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, want to make Ceer an EV brand”[…] with a leading role in infotainment, connectivity and autonomous technology”.

Ceer certainly does not develop the technology required for this alone. The joint venture is joining BMW, with which it has concluded a license agreement for the use of various components.

The creation of Ceer is related to PIF’s desire to diversify the economy. In doing so, Ceer must contribute to reducing the country’s emissions, in the context of what it calls climate change. Ceer is not only Saudi Arabia’s first electric car brand, but also the first car brand to build cars in the country. The cars will soon not only be built in Saudi Arabia, but also designed. Ceer’s cars, the brand talks about the arrival of sedans and SUVs, among other things, must also be sold elsewhere in the Middle East and in North Africa in addition to Saudi Arabia. According to the brand, it already has about $150 million in foreign investment and indirectly creates up to 30,000 jobs.

Extensive technical data is not known and we are also not able to provide design sketches for the time being. We do know that Ceer wants to ‘make the EV mainstream’, which most likely means that the brand’s cars do not operate at the top of the market. Foxcon is responsible for the development of the electrical hardware. The first Ceer models will hit the local market in 2025.