Saudi Arabia shouldn’t have bothered. Nobody except China is even trying to make a cost-competitive EV (in fact, every other country is trying to block the import of those cost-competitive EVs). Poorer countries are stuck with ICE because the “developed world” refuses to develop cheaper clean alternatives that poorer people can actually use. Instead, we get Rivians and Lucids and Teslas supporter by billions of dollars in incentives and subsidies and no reason to meaningfully drive costs down. All for the sake of profit at the cost of progress.

Because the environment is just peachy, and they don’t have nearly enough money yet?

Of course, they don’t care about climate change. They are in a desert already.