A few weeks ago, an electric car company named Lucid Motors managed to fully step into the market by securing a $1 billion deal to finance their 2020 production line from the sovereign wealth fund of Saudi Arabia. This was a major milestone for the innovative company as they have struggled for a few years to bring their concepts to fruition due to a lack of funding.

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This massive financial aid will allow the company to roll out their primary product, the luxurious Lucid Air by their deadline. Lucid Motors is rolling out their electric vehicles in North America first but this would be almost impossible without funding for manufacturing and the completion of their new factory in Casa Grande, Arizona. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia made the announcement that they wanted to back such a company for the sake of innovation and “sectoral diversification” for their country.

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The electric car market is growing but at the moment it the funding for startups is difficult to secure so companies like Tesla control much of the market. However, Tesla’s stock price has been dropping and it allows for smaller companies to enter. Lucid Motors has a specific goal of selling luxury electric cars and they had unveiled the Lucid Air last year at a Los Angeles expo. This would be direct competition for Tesla’s vehicles which is a good sing for sustainability in vehicles because as the market becomes more competitive, these vehicles will become more affordable and readily available.

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Another major win for Lucid Motors was a deal that they have signed with Volkswagen’s electric charging sector. Owners of Lucid vehicles will be able to charge their cars at any of Volkswagen’s soon to be charging stations. The project, called Electrify America is set to have 500 charging stations built or under construction in forty states by 2019. Tesla is not involved with this deal which is a good sign for Lucid. This project is actually the result of Volkswagen’s diesel emissions scandal where they were found to be cheating the tests. As part of their settlement, they are spending $2 billion in the United States promoting the use of electric transportation. This infrastructure is absolutely vital to selling vehicles. If the customers are not satisfied with their ability to charge while travelling then there is no chance anybody would purchase them.

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The company has made great strides in the last year and hopefully they continue a healthy competition with Tesla to ensure the market for electric cars can be entered by innovative new companies. The technology that they bring to the table is allowing more businesses to move to sustainable practices and most automakers are following the largest companies’ leads. Nothing is certain so Lucid must use their funding wisely to maintain their plan of rolling out cars within the next two years. This was made possible by a government’s desire to be a part of a company that will be around in the future and boasts innovation and sustainability as their core principles.