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NEVS, the company that took over Saab, gets new majority owner

Chinese real estate conglomerate Evergrande Group, a key investor behind troubled electric vehicle startup Faraday Future, has acquired a 51 percent stake in NEVS. That's the Chinese-backed Swedish electric vehicle company that purchased the assets of Saab out of bankruptcy in 2012. The investment by subsidiary Evergrande Health Industry Group was valued at the equivalent of $930 million and is expected to help NEVS develop new EVs. Evergrande said it paid the first installment of $430 million on Jan. 15, with the remainder due by the end of the month. The remaining 49 percent stake is controlled by a holding company controlled by NEVS founder Kai Johan Jiang. "It means that NEVS will get a financial (sic) strong main owner who is very interested in developing our vision about green mobility transport solutions for the future," NEVS CEO Stefan Tilk said in a statement. NEVS, short for National Electric Vehicle Sweden, owns production facilities in Trollhattan, Sweden, and Tianjin, China, with another under construction in Shanghai. In late 2017 the company launched what apparently was limited production of the 9-3 EV, an electric vehicle based — you guessed it — on the old Saab 9-3 platform. The company now says it will be built in Tianjin starting later this year, with components coming from Trollhattan. It boasts a 186-mile range, in-car WiFi and a cabin air filter for the notoriously smoggy Chinese air. It also showed a battery-electric 9-3X concept at CES Asia in 2017, which is likely to be its next model pegged for production. The South China Morning Post, citing local media reports, says two of NEVS' models meet the standards for mass production in China. This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings. Definitely the best promotional video we've ever seen. Evergrande Health first came to Faraday Future's rescue back in 2017 with a promised $2 billion investment, but the two sides later went into arbitration in Hong Kong over a dispute about money following the first infusion of $800 million, leading the automaker to cut staff and wages last year, casting the future of FF into doubt. At the end of 2018, Faraday announced it had entered into a new restructuring agreement with an Evergrande Health subsidiary that sees them end litigation and jettison the previous investment agreement, taking Evergrande's investment in the company to 32 percent.

NEVS' reorganization plan approved after all?

What a difference a day makes. Thursday, we reported that current Saab parent National Electric Vehicle Sweden had its application for creditor protection denied by the Swedish court for being "vague and completely undocumented." But NEVS was back in court on Friday, and this time the application was granted. However, the story continued to get weirder as defense contractor Saab AB allegedly revoked NEVS' rights to use the Saab name.
NEVS did put out a brief press release confirming the court decision saying: "The District court of Vänersborg, Sweden, today August 29 approved the application for reorganization from National Electric Vehicle Sweden AB." The company allegedly has over 90 creditors, and according to Reuters, it owes them roughly 400 million Swedish krona ($57.56 million). The business says that it is in negotiations with two, unnamed companies to get additional funding.
Also, according to Reuters, Saab AB, best known for making fighter planes, has revoked NEVS' rights to the Saab brand name because the company's application for creditor protection gave the defense contractor that right. When NEVS bought Saab, it only acquired the automaker's physical assets, and had to negotiate for the rights to use the name.

The Saab 9-3 that never was finally shows up

Looking back on the life and [slow and painful] death of Saab, it's impossible to not stop and think of what might have been with the quirky Swedish automaker. As it turns out, SaabsUnited has decided to shed some light on what the company's future might have looked like, including some images and information that include full-scale mockups of the 9-3 Phoenix, which you see above.
In its waning years, Saab's lead designer Jason Castriota was working feverishly to deliver new products that built on the heritage of the brand while doing so at a lower cost and in a shorter time period than previous models. In the end, though, it sounds like the earliest that we could have seen any of these plans come to fruition was 2014. In addition to hatchback and convertible 9-3 variants, Castriota also created the Sonnett - a sporty-looking 2+2 that never made it past the design study phase.
Regardless of whether you're a diehard fan of the brand or if you were just pulling for the underdog, you'll want to head on over to SaabsUnited to check out a little more of what the future could have held for Saab.