If you are launching a new car brand, subtlety is probably a luxury you cannot afford. Saudi Arabia’s Ceer has made its entrance with the Exobot: an electric saloon and SUV that look determined to occupy every inch of the photograph. The doors swing upwards, the glass stretches forwards and the proportions seem to have arrived with their own red carpet. Fine. Now for the less photogenic question: can a new manufacturer turn that spectacle into cars people actually want to live with?
Ceer revealed both vehicles on 21 September at its manufacturing complex in King Abdullah Economic City. They are the first instalment of a planned seven-model range, with smaller vehicles intended to follow. The company says the Exobot was designed and engineered in Saudi Arabia and will be manufactured there. This is a car launch, but also an attempt to build an automotive industry around it. You can admire the ambition without giving the finished product a free pass.
Big ambition has a width problem
Ceer has given the saloon a wedge profile and the SUV a similarly theatrical stance. Its own dimensions put both at 2.1 metres wide, while the saloon stretches to 5.26 metres long. That is plenty of road presence, though it would be an entertainingly poor fit for many British parking spaces. The company has not announced UK launch details in the material reviewed, so this is not a shopping-list recommendation for next year. It is an early look at what a fresh electric-car maker thinks will cut through a crowded market.
The upward-opening doors are called Shahin Wings, after a falcon, and Ceer says they operate through a relatively compact arc. They make a terrific entrance. But grand doors earn their keep only if passengers can get in easily, seals stay quiet and the mechanism survives ordinary use. The launch pictures cannot answer those questions. The cleverest design choice might turn out to be something you barely notice after the first week.
The useful engineering is hiding behind the fireworks
The headline figures are deliberately enormous. Ceer lists an 850hp, three-motor all-wheel-drive set-up for the First Edition, with a 112kWh battery and 800-volt electrical architecture. It quotes a 2.6-second sprint to 100km/h for the saloon. That is an arresting calling card, but another brutally quick EV does not, by itself, make a convincing new car company.
Far more interesting is the attention Ceer says it has paid to heat. Its launch information describes cooling, glazing and air-conditioning developed for long journeys in intense sun. That is a sensible place for a Saudi-focused car to establish an identity. If those systems work as promised, they will matter far more often than full-throttle acceleration. It is the sort of engineering challenge a brochure photograph cannot flatter; either the cabin cools down quickly or it does not.
Inside, Ceer pairs a sweeping digital display with physical controls for functions including climate and volume. Good. A huge screen can impress a passenger in a showroom, but the driver still needs to change the temperature without conducting a finger ballet at a roundabout. There is also a steering yoke and steer-by-wire system. That combination deserves careful scrutiny: visual drama is easy, natural steering feel and everyday confidence are harder.
Build the trust, then the legend
Ceer’s company information identifies the Saudi Public Investment Fund and Foxconn among its partners. Its ambitions reach beyond these two big flagships. For enthusiasts, that makes the Exobot more than an exotic curiosity. New makers can bring fresh ideas, fresh competition and, occasionally, fresh ways to make a simple task infuriatingly complicated. We should be open to the first two and ruthless about the third.
There are still practical blanks for a UK reader: no announced local sales plan, no British price and no WLTP range figure in the launch material reviewed. None needs to be invented to make this story interesting. Ceer has made the opening move and it is impossible to ignore. The next move is to prove that the cabin, charging, service and production quality are as considered as those doors. If they are, the Exobot could become the start of something. If they are not, it will remain a very large exclamation mark.
Sources
- Auto Express: Ceer Exobot reveal
- Ceer: Exobot world premiere and product details
- Ceer: flagship vehicles and seven-model plan
- Ceer: company and partners
- Ceer: Exobot model range
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