The saga of Saab recently entered a new chapter, as its parent company, National Electric Vehicle Sweden (NEVS) made an alliance with two state-owned Chinese organizations. Motor Authority reported that the Tianjin Binhai Hi-tech Industrial Development Area (THT) and the Beijing State Research Information Technology Company (SRIT) will pay a total of $200 million for a 30 percent stake in NEVS.
The new partners announced plans for a joint-venture factory in Tianjin where NEVS will build EVs for the Chinese market. The vehicles will probably be built on NEVS’s Phoenix platform, but it’s not yet known whether they will be sold as Saabs or as some other brand.
The alliance with SRIT, which has links to the telecom giant China Unicom, is expected to give NEVS access to the latest software and connectivity technology.
Saab’s recent history reads like one of the heroic struggles against hopeless odds from the Nordic Edda. The automaker, which was founded in 1945, became a subsidiary of GM in 2000, was sold to the Dutch firm Spyker in 2010, went bankrupt in 2011, and was bought by the Chinese/Japanese consortium NEVS in 2012. After briefly restarting production, NEVS entered bankruptcy in 2014, to emerge again earlier this year.
“NEVS’s focus is to produce high quality electric vehicles with China as its initial main market,” said NEVS President Mattias Bergman. “The long-term cooperation with the development area THT in Tianjin and the IT pioneer SRIT will help us achieve our vision and our goal of a global strategic presence and is an important addition to the resources we have in Trollhättan [Sweden].”
Source: Motor Authority