Saab is finally "saved"? It seems (for now) that way. The trustees have just announced that a consortium called National Electric Vehicle Sweden (Nevs) may buy certain parts of the bankrupt Saab Automobile.

The press release is currently available, so all we have to do is to extract details, but it seems that Nevs plans to build, to the factory in Sweden, electric and hybrid cars. About the same cars that Saab previously built is not clear. There is speculation about an electric version of the 9-3 and 9-1 based on a Japanese electric car ( Mitsubishi i-MiEV ?).

Would they want to develop the Phoenix platform also as a hybrid and /or electric vehicle to market? That means another 3 years. We know that, in any case, Saab Parts, the company responsible for the current Saab parts will not go to Chinese. The Swedish government is the owner of that company and ensures the delivery of components from existing cars.

At the head of the Chinese Nevs Swede is Johan Jiang Kai and he is assisted by Karl-Erling Trogen (former CEO of Volvo Trucks). Once there is more information we will update this article.


What is Nevs?

Nevs is the acronym that stands for National Electric Vehicle Sweden and the recently established 'business' is the (intended) to be the new owner of some remnants of the old Saab Automobile.
Behind Nevs are 2 other companies. On the one hand we have the Japanese "Sun Investment LLC" (49%), a company that exists only since last year, and on the other hand, we have National Modern Energy Holdings (51%). That company is located in the British Virgin Islands (nice dubious) and the owner of NMEH is called China Dragon Base Holdings. The CEO of this Chinese / Hong Kong company is Kai Johan Jiang (who also has Swedish nationality) and he swings the scepter at the Chinese State Power Group Co.., Ltd.. which in turn is a biofuel plant in Sweden ( NBA Sweden AB ).

It is all rather vague and Bertel Schmitt of The Truth About Cars says that, due to the use of businesses in Japan, Hong Kong and British Virgin Islands that it is actually just a 100% Chinese acquisition. Chinese companies are frequently used in Japan as a cloak to Chinese not to come in front. It also gives everyone a lot of fun that the 'Swedish' CEO, Kai Johan Jiang is born in China and grew up there. Later he had a Swedish passport, but he's also deeply implicated in Chinese politics.

How deep are the pockets of the new Chinese owners we do not know, but we can already tell that they have hundreds of millions -if not billions- to put things back on track. And we have not even talked about the time that it will cost to develop new cars.

via:autoblog.nl