When you think of cars and Saudi Arabia, you’d be forgiven for thinking of incredibly expensive European cars, typically modified in a particularly distasteful fashion by one of the more crass tuning houses. And indeed, the first Saudi-designed vehicle was a fairly garish SUV known as the Ghazal. But the second-ever Saudi-developed vehicle is actually a very modest, entry-level compact car, known as the Aseela (“Original” in Arabic). This strange little vehicle was developed by the King Abdul Aziz City for Science and Technology’s National Program for Automobile Technology, and debuted this week at the Riyad Auto Show. According to themedialine.com
officials said it was to serve as the basis for a domestic auto manufacturing industry that Saudi Arabia is trying to develop
Yes Virginia, Saudi Arabia is trying to develop an auto manufacturing industry. Well, sort of. According to the report, the Saudis plan on building a $16m production line which will build between 2,000 and 5,000 of the $13,000 Aseelas per year… which makes this more of a “hobby project” than a true “industry.” By contrast, the plan is to build 20k of the ghastly Ghazals over the next three years, at a cost of about half a billion dollars. But then, Saudi Arabia might be one of the few countries where an ugly SUV would fare better than an inoffensive little compact.
it will werk if it comes with free oel for 1 yr, but gas is cheap there, and is very cheap here too if only we pay no taxes.
in Canada perhaps 20 cents a Litre, before all the bells & whistles of taxes on taxes added on.
a car at $13 k, how do they find cheap skilled labour to build them? Could always import workers from Eastern europe too.
the money part to build infrastructure will never be an issue.
Or build a total automated factory, just put scrap metal 1 end and finished cars comes out the other end.
Oh well they could subsidize the car too.
This will lose money by the bucketload, but I guess they have plenty of buckets.
Reminds me of Saudi’s insane attempt to develop wheat farming in the 80s, using desalinized water for irrigation — with production costs 5x the world price.
In that picture, it resembles a knock-off previous-gen Mazda3.
@orangutan: it looks to me like a face lift on the just discontinued Skoda Octavia.
5K units @ that price is a serious recipe for loses. US$ 16M buys you a decent trim shop in my experience. So I suspect this is going to be an SKD operation, with the bodies and other components coming from other country/ies.
My only personal experience with Saudi was in the Gulf War 90-91, and I haven’t been back since. Based on what I’ve read about them, they have experienced their own baby boom over the past 20-25 years and their oil production and revenues are flat. Unemployment with Saudi citizens is rising (as is crime) and the cradle to grave welfare state is being stretched pretty thin. This really may be a legitimate attempt to create their own manufacturing industry for employment and street cred in front of the world. Their bureaucracy is inefficient and work ethic is very weak to non-existent, so they’ll need to hire lots of help.
I’m sure Saudis will be in upper management, Western expatriates will be in middle management and Third World immigrants on the assembly lines. Just my opinion.
With the quality just about where you would expect.
How patriotic are Saudis? Will they buy something just because it’s Saud versus something that is well built? Getting a good car shouldn’t be that difficult, gov’t willing of course.
Saudi Arabia rolling out an econo car is like Jeffrey Dahmer rolling out a Veg-O-Matic.
If 15k rate is a hobby, what is Tesla?
Boutique.
It will only sell if the design is ‘tres sheik.’
Recently replaced Chevy Cobalt sedan, is that you?
Saudi Arabia developing ANY industry is a joke. When I participated in the Southwest Asia wargames (first place!) the Saudi’s I met wouldn’t do anything that they could pay someone else to do, and as posted above had little to no work ethic. These weren’t oil rich shieks either. Most of the key engineering and technical work in Saudia Arabia military or civilian was done by westerners, the construction by Koreans, Thai’s, and Pakistanis. I found out that the Saudi Royals refuse to do a census, because they don’t want anyone to know how many infidels actually do live in the land of Mecca and Medina.
So if they do develop an auto industry it will be designed, constructed managed and the cars built by westerners and people from the Pacific rim with the Saudi’s having a figurehead prince here or there to show that they’re really in charge.