Delivery is not yet set for the 22 Saab 39 Gripen planes that will be part of the Swiss Air Force.

Great for Sweden and the Saab brand. Will Hirsch make a fighter Saab now?

Here is Saab AB´s press release

The Swiss government has decided to select Gripen as its future multirole fighter aircraft for the Swiss Air Force.

Given that Switzerland is known globally for applying highest procurement standards and requesting state-of-the art technologies, Saab is both proud and delighted that Gripen has been chosen as the Swiss Air Force’s future multirole fighter aircraft.

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It seams that Teknikens Värld did not get things exactly right!

“What I said to Teknikens Värld was that I did not believe a 100% chinese deal would ever be approved”. Victor also states to SaabsUnited that he believes in the Chinese but not that a 100% ownership would be approved.

Sometimes you are in the right place at the right moment. And this has been the case for Erik Gustaffsson, a reporter from Teknikens Värld.

He was at the Heathrow Airport in London where he met Victor Muller. This is the short interview.

Exclusive interview: Muller does not believe in the Chinese

Victor Muller doubts that GM will ever accept a Chinese Saab business. According to him, Youngman, Pang Da and Guy Lofalk sabotaged the whole business when they went from the original plan. It says Muller in an exclusive interview with the Teknikens Värld.

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OFF-TOPIC (automotorsport.se)

In may a crash test was performed on the Chevrolet Volt by the National Highway and Traffic Safety Administration in the United States. The lithium-ion batteries were damaged and three weeks later the car caught fire. After an investigation, investigators discovered that batteries would become overheated if turned 180°.

An official investigations is now underway to get to the bottom of this strange event. GM tells all customers in a long press-release that they are offered another GM Loaner car until the investigation is completed. At the same time it is also stated that Chevrolet Volt has reached 5 stars in other crash-tests. Its sister-model Opel Ampera got 5 stars in Euro NCAP.

“This technology should give confidence and pride, not questions and doubt. The question on how to handle batteries for days and weeks after a serious accident, makes this investigation interesting not only for the Volt, but for the whole industry” say Mark Reuss, CEO of GM in the United States.

How this will affect the e-Power is still unknown but Mark Reuss is absolutely right about this being something that is interesting for the whole industry. Electric cars are still in an infant and learning-experiece stage of its life, lots of lessons will probably be learned over the years.

I for one would be very interested in an BioPower / e-Power hybrid car! I need the range and top-speed of normal liquid fuel but would love the electric power when city-driving…

P4 West reports that Victor Muller will attend the Tv talk-show “skavlan” on Swedish Television. It will be recorded on thursday and broadcasted on friday night. We’ll try to put up a stream from it as soon as we can!

The talk-show is fairly well respected and considered to have a very nice and amusing tone. Several guests sit down and talk to each other in a group sharing life experiences and other issues.

I’m really looking forward to this episode!

Broadcasted on SVT 1 at 21:00 Central European Time

The swedish auto-magazine “Vi Bilägare” reports of a national survey which shows that the confidence in Saab as a brand is down at 11% in Sweden. It also shows that the confidence for Volvo Cars is going down from 66% to 58%.

Well if only 11% out of 9 million people are willing to buy a Saab in Sweden, that still means that 990’000 people would be willing to buy a Saab and Saab only needs to sell 80’000 cars to become profitable so I would say that the figures look pretty good anyway… Please accept the irony in this but I just find these surveys to be so utterly stupid! =)

In reality only a very small fraction of the people actually asked would ever be able to afford to buy a brand new Saab so the whole idea of this survey is a joke from the start. What they should have done is to ask previous Saab owners if they would be willing to buy a new one within anytime soon and I know that nobody asked me, perhaps the answer is too obvious =P