GOING FOR BROKE: Saudi Arabia's Debut EV Brand Stuns With Absurd Speed
Saudi Arabia just entered the electric vehicle race in dramatic fashion, unveiling the Exobot sedan and SUV, the kingdom's first homegrown flagship EVs, and the numbers are almost hard to believe. Built by Ceer, a joint venture between Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund and Foxconn, the top-spec Exobot uses a tri-motor all-wheel-drive setup to churn out a staggering 1,111 horsepower and 1,500 Newton-meters of torque. That kind of power translates into brutal acceleration, with the sedan rocketing from zero to 100 kilometers per hour in just 2.1 seconds, while the SUV isn't far behind at 2.4 seconds. Both vehicles were designed and engineered locally, with a look and feel that draws directly from Saudi Arabia's landscape and culture rather than borrowing from established Western or Asian automakers.
Beyond the raw speed, the Exobot leans hard into striking design, featuring a dramatic wedge-shaped silhouette, nearly three-meter-long Shahin wing doors inspired by the falcon, and what Ceer claims is the largest windshield ever fitted to a production car. Cultural touches run throughout the design too, including lighting made up of 32 individual elements referencing 1932, the year Saudi Arabia was unified, and wheel patterns inspired by traditional architecture. Both models run on an 800-volt platform with a 112-kilowatt-hour battery, offering up to 670 kilometers of range on the sedan and fast charging from 10 to 80 percent in under 30 minutes. The Exobot marks just the first of seven models Ceer plans to roll out by 2030, positioning Saudi Arabia to become a genuine player in the global EV industry as it works to diversify its economy away from oil.