SageBrush wrote:Yep. If one ignores for a moment that they are radical Sunni zealots, their actions mimic Norway.
Similar, MAYBE. Yet I don't see much about how many electric cars are in the Kingdom, unlike Norway.
UAE and Dubai have electric cars. Few in the Kingdom. UAE and Dubai have Supercharger, Destination Telsa locations. Saudi Arabia does not.
When a threat to over half of the economy is growing at 30%, one might be scared. Saudi Arabia has been planning, saving and investing for the end of oil based on pumping the last barrel for a long time. They don't want the price too high, or alternatives will be developed. They don't want the price too low, as they want the rest of the world drained of oil as well. The idea is to maximize Saudi profits, a rational plan. Their interest, not ours. The thought that the oil age ends before the last barrel is a direct threat to the Kingdom's stability. If they can delay that threat, all the better.
So buy and kill Tesla is a rational response. I'm of course not sure that is the plan, but I wouldn't exclude it. Probably will not matter, much, as the genie is out of the lamp. Killing Tesla might remove a majority of electric cars make and sold in the USA today, but not China, not Japan and not Europe. 18 years ago the threat was understood.
Sheikh Ahmed Zaki Yamani, the former Saudi oil minister wrote:"Thirty years from now there will be a huge amount of oil - and no buyers. Oil will be left in the ground. The Stone Age came to an end, not because we had a lack of stones."