According to the local newspaper ttela.se as of today the first instalment has been paid in full to the creditors. Last week the first creditors have been paid, and today all the creditors that had to be paid in this first instalment have been paid.
This means that 469 out of 573 creditors, the ones with claims below 500000 SEK (60191 USD; 50249 EUR), have been fully paid. This has been done just 3 days before the deadline, that was set for June 13.
NEVS has paid in this first instalment just under 100 Million SEK (12.04 Million USD; 10.6 Million EUR).
The rest of the creditors, the ones that will only be paid in half, should get their money before mid-October.
Good.
At the same time of payment, NEVS tianjin production plant is decided to be built in Huaming, Binhai, tianjin. The construction might start before the end of June
NEVS Tianjin production plant will start construction in late June in Huaming Hi-tech zone, in Tianjin. With a total investment of 400 million US dollars, NEVS will build a whole NEV vehicle production plant and research center, with an annual output of 120k BEVs and 100k PHEVs. (By alfred)
Another investor is a public-listed company from China. NEVS China was officially established in Tianjin Huaming on May 28.
Hope this good sign is the start of a new beginning.
It is a good sign, but the path for the future is still unclear. My impression is that in mid-October the future of NEVS will be much clearer.
Red: Seems like for a couple years now, all of us here, myself included, keep kicking the can down the road by saying “In a few months, things will be clear.” We always seem to grab onto something and conclude that in 3 or 4 months “We’ll know.” Well, at this point, I think it’s a farce. The wrong people are in place to try to bring this company back to an actual existence. That’s clear. This will just hobble along until it doesn’t. And honestly, I have no idea when that time will come. If there is ever a new majority owner with money and a plan that can work, it will be of interest. As long as this group is in control, there’s zero to get excited about, because they’ve failed. They failed out of the block with their ideas and couldn’t even make good on bad ideas anyway. I’m tired of hearing about waiting for investors. I wish we were talking about waiting for a buyer again.
Angelo,
there will be no new buyer, whatsoever once again.
Either NEVS manages to build cars in THN, or you will never again see cars build in that city.
Red: Why do you think that is the case? Why is it “NEVS OR NOBODY?” That’s creepy. It’s truly creepy that your statement is so final—-cars will never be built in that city again unless it’s NEVS who builds those cars. The financial status and employment fortunes for a city in the hands of these failures? Why?
Simply because they are the only ones willing to try!
They are doing NOTHING for Saab. If they want to build only electric cars in China, then they will fail and I hope they do. Why don’t they sell the assets to someone who actually cares about the brand? People also still want their conventional Saab turbo engine car. I hope NEVS get crushed!!!;
Seriously, why don’t they do the right thing and sell them to someone who actually cares about the brand? The brand is iconic next to Volvo since they are both Swedish. Their has to be someone out there who would be interested in it. Heck, I’d rather let GM have Saab back if they would let them do their own thing and develop their own platforms, that was the problem before. They interfered too much.
Geely should buy Saab and get both iconic Swedish brands under one umbrella. Saab could be slotted at a slightly lower price point and focus on hatchbacks at the entry level as well as more expensive sport sedans, sport wagons, convertibles, etc. Volvo could be the more formal luxury division with SUVs and sedans/wagons that are more luxury cars than drivers cars like Saab.
This might make sense, but have Geely ever shown any interest in acquiring SAAB? The problem seems to have been that since GM refused to make their patents in SAAB vehicles available to anyone, almost no-one has been interested as SAAB could not be acquired as a going concern. The only bidders for the bankrupt SAAB were NEVS and Youngman. Youngman was ruled out because of their previous failure to pay promised money. Mahindra decided not to submit a final bid, despite the opportunity to do so under the same conditions as NEVS. Tims documents published here made that clear and suggested the conditions attached by SAAB AB to the use of the name may have been part of the reason. Mahindra seems to have again decided not to go ahead with a buy in, again the naming issue could be a factor. As I see it NEVS has now separated the electric cars for China plan from making cars in Sweeden for other markets. Whether any such vehicles will be made seems to depend on other partners coming in. What any such cars might be and whether they could be called SAABs is totally unclear. Heres hoping, but I am not optimistic. Of course if Borgward can be revived after 50 years, you never know.
Harnish: As I recall, Mahindra (and others) were called back in too late to reasonably be able to formulate a bid by deadline. This was rigged for NEVS because the people in charge liked the green energy/EV aspect that this failed group promoted. What a spectacle it became—-the tail wagging the dog when they were “forced” by a province in China (22% investor)? to build the 9-3, then the province pulled out anyway? LOL. It’s like none of these people have ever been involved in business previously. It was actually comical. If it was any other brand than Saab, I would have enjoyed the laughs instead of being angry about it.
As I recall it the documents published by Tim disproved that conspiracy theory. There were extensive discussions between Mahindra and the administrators before Mahindra decided not to bid. It was the job of the administrators to sell SAAB to get money for the creditors. NEVS paid that money. It was not the job of the administrators to ensure that the new owners would be successful or would build the type of cars we wanted. I am certainly not defending NEVS subsequent performance.
If they’re building factories in China to manufacture electric cars in partnership with other Chinese organizations, it really makes me wonder why they bought SAAB auto in the first place. They could have simply “copied” SAABs and built them in China under a different brand name, which it sounds like what they’ll be doing anyway, since they can’t use the SAAB name.
It all seems like a huge waste of time, money and resources to me. I wish they would say what their ultimate plan is in regard to SAAB cars.
Brian: They’re empty suits. They don’t have the first clue of how to succeed, how to be a functioning automobile company. They’re wannabees and they’ve exhausted any goodwill most Saab owners/fans had toward them. They’ve overstayed their welcome, in my opinion, but over 2 years now. Allow me to summarize: They don’t know what they’re doing, yet they are obtuse enough to expect Saab enthusiasts to engage with them at a festival after ignoring these enthusiasts for the better part of 3 years? Really?
I know all that Angelo. I’ve been following everything here very carefully. We have to concede though, that they’re all we’ve got. No NEVS=nothing!
We can’t go back in time, so we have to look forward, and just hope that they can somehow salvage the spirit of SAAB cars, however they badge them. But I think if they can’t do that, no one else will, so it might well be all over.
As for me, I’ve just bought a 2004 Laser red 93 Convertible. ‘Looks like a brand new car, straight off the showroom floor…just 80,000 miles on her, so she’ll see me out. I’m happy I have such a beautiful car.
They aren’t capable of preserving the spirit of Saab cars. That’s impossible given what we’ve seen. Right out of the gate, their plan was to build electric vehicles to sell in China. They gave lip service to “possibly expanding” but for all intents and purposes, they were going to have a symbolic presence in Sweden for a while, then focus primarily on China, even building cars in a Chinese factory, to sell in China for the long term. That’s not Saab. And frankly, they weren’t even able to read basic tea leaves about their own chosen market, China. I said here over 2 years ago that China was NOT rushing into electric cars and that their government would not be investing billions in an infrastructure for EV recharging. The NEVS supporters argued that and linked to articles (clearly PR hoaxes—-as I could tell because in my 30 years in business, I’ve not only read PR hoaxes, I’ve written them). Anyway, there’s a cadence and buzz words that are designed to snare the majority of people, conceding that a percentage of experienced people will roll their eyes at the comments. Here, NEVS, who should have been in that percentage that understood there was no imminent push for EVs, apparently fell into the majority category—-and formulated a business plan based on China moving to EVs in the next few years (beginning in 2012). LOL. I might have been wrong about a few things though. I fully believed that these people were smart and just making themselves richer somehow, through this scheme. Now I’m not so sure. Seems like the financial trouble is real, and the principles involved aren’t walking away with full pockets—-seems to be the smell of a little desperation in the air. Could they have really been that clueless? I don’t know.
From what I can gather by hat NEVS has said, they want to build high-end electric cars with the Saab badge whilst taking into account Saab’s innovative and pioneering heritage.
They just haven’t got there (yet), and the whole 2014 9-3 was a huge and unnecessary sidetrack. Although people DO say it’s the best balanced 9-3 of them all. It just cost them dearly.