I heard that the Chinese Dongfeng Automotive group is prepared to invest upwards of $500 million, to restart the Saab Plant in Trolhattan, Sweden. presumably, the new models would be electric vehicles for export. Is the Swedish government going along with this?
I read that the use of the SAAB brand name is an issue-the Swedish Government doesn’t want its name dragged into the mud, should it fail again. At any rate, any news from Sweden?
I saw this:
It’s not the Swedish Government that’s the problem. The SAAB name belongs to SAAB AB, an aerospace company. The car company was using the name under license, but they lost that license in the latest round of bankruptcy, because SAAB AB would like to distance itself from a car company run by idiots that keeps going broke every couple of years. The company’s new owner has admitted that he doesn’t have the rights to the name, and they’re working on developing a new name (for the Chinese market), so whatever they produce most likely will be called something else, altho I imagine they could probably use Saab’s old model names (like the 9-3) if they wanted.
As for production, last I heard they don’t even have anything ready for production yet, so it’ll probably be at least a couple of years before anything is built. What I’ve read suggests that this company is mainly interested in selling cars in China, and anywhere else is, at best, an afterthought.
As for making it in Sweden, frankly most people seem to expect that any production that does happen in Sweden will be only a temporary arrangement until they finish building their Chinese factory, at which point production will shift over there and everything in Sweden becomes redundant.
Yep. SAAB stands for “Svenska Aeroplan Aktie-Bolaget” - “Swedish Aeroplane Corporation”. They make both civilian and military aircraft (and other stuff). The car business was only a part of the company. The non-automotive part of SAAB is still Swedish-owned and doing OK…
To add to the confusion, SAAB also makes big-rigs and that business was not part of what was sold to the Chinese.
Close. The truck-making company is Scania. Once upon a time, Scania and Saab had common owners, and the Saab car company started as a joint venture between them. Scania supplied the grffin logo that Saab cars used, also under license. They lost the rights to the logo in the second-most-recent bankruptcy (yes, there is a reason I said the company is run by idiots), which is why it doesn’t appear on the most recent crop of Saabs. These days, Scania is owned by Volkswagen.
According to the wikipedia article it was a little more than that. SAAB and Scania merged in 1969 and split back up in 1995. Or maybe we’re saying the same thing?
The first real production year for the original Saab 92 was 1950 (a few were produced 1949). I have a coffee table book they gave me when I bought a 1987 Saab (50th year anniversary of the company). According to that, “Project Small Car” was started in 1945 - they realized that it would be a good idea to get into another business since the aircraft business was going to be terrible following WWII with countries winding down their militaries, and a glut of WWII surplus aircraft on the market.
There may have been common ownership between them and Scania-Vabis, but I doubt that they car business was a joint venture between them twenty years before their eventual merger. I don’t recall that book mentioning it, and it dealt with Scania history in a different section.
I don’t know why they’d buy it. They have pirated knockoffs of just about every other car out there, why bother with buying SAAB?
I’d be pretty skeptical. NEVS has been trying the “build new electric cars in Sweden using drivetrains from China” since they bought Saab’s husk back in 2012. It’s been a whole succession of deals falling through and electric drivetrains not materializing since then. Not to mention optimistic press releases. The wiki page has a pretty good summary of the whole Saab/NEV saga up till last year: Saab Automobile - Wikipedia