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Saab enthusiast meeting at NEVS (with Q&A)

July 20, 2016 by Jonathan

A couple of days after the news that NEVS will use its own brand instead of Saab, a number of Saab car enthusiasts were invited to a meeting with NEVS at the Stallbacka plant in Trollhättan. Among others, the chairmen of Svenska Saabklubben and Saab Turbo Club of Sweden were there, with the Saab Car Museum curator. NEVS held a presentation and showed the group around the plant.

Saabklubben chairman Karl Ask with Jonas Hernqvist, Sales & Marketing at NEVS.

A more throughly analysis/editorial from the chairman of Saabklubben will follow here at SaabsUnited soon, but for now we have a Q&A (questions & answers) with NEVS along with a large number of pictures from the meeting. These are questions from us and from the readers of SaabsUnited.

Tidbits on NEVS from TTELA

July 6, 2016July 6, 2016 by Jonathan

TTELA recently posted an interesting article that sheds some light on the development work and progress of NEVS and their new electric cars. In “Här skapas Nevs nya bilmodeller” (Here the new car models of Nevs are created), TTELA got access to three out of four development rooms at the Stallbacka plant.

NEVS main entrance at the Stallbacka plant in Trollhättan. Picture: Michèl Annink

According to Frank Smit, project manager at NEVS, the whole company is involved in their projects, with 8 people being responsible for different main areas. They work with a large number of engineers in Trollhättan, while close to 80 people are working simultaneously in China (among other things with the new plant there).

As mentioned, they didn’t get access to one particular development room. That room might contain a new Phoenix based electric car.

One of the current projects at NEVS is the development of the third generation NEVS 9-3. “We are working on a new battery and a new electric engine”, Frank Smit says. Even though these cars are based on the Saab 9-3 from 2002, they have basically been built from scratch. There are about 30 NEVS 9-3 in existance in Trollhättan right now and approx. 10 NEVS 9-3 in China.

They also discuss transportation of the cars from Trollhättan to China, where NEVS claim that the Trans-Siberian railway is faster than transport by boat. Tests of the train rails in the Stallbacka plant has therefore recently been made.

Finally, there’s a clock counting down above one of the doors to the development rooms. It’s marked “Time Remaining” and at the time of TTELA’s visit (last Saturday), it was at 334 days. This is most likely a count down for the first car in China. According to Frank Smit this will happen in the second half of 2017.

Be sure to check out the article at TTELA for more pictures from their visit!

A few trademark thoughts (or a crazy idea?)

July 5, 2016June 22, 2016 by Hjelle

As you all probability has seen will Nevs from now on use the Nevs trademark on their products. If Nevs would use “Saab” trademark or something else has been discussed here at SU for a long time, and now we got the answer. For me personally I would say it’s sad the Saab trademark now officially is history, but this scenario isn’t something that was absolutely unexpected. I would like to wish Nevs all the best with the new trademark, but there is a question I guess many Saab-enthusiasts will raise now.

Saturday 6th was the National day of Sweden, so I found a Swedish flag and drove my T16 down to the Stallbacka factory for some photos. — Saturday 6th is the National day of Sweden, so I found a Swedish flag and drove my T16 down to the Stallbacka factory for some photos.

What will happen with the big Saab signs that’s placed around on the factory site?

The obvious answer is of course that Nevs will remove them – it’s simply no need for them now, when Nevs is the new trademark.

I know this signs have been a very popular photo location for us fans, and for many this had been the highlight at the visit to the factory area at Stallbacka. I also noticed in social media that many people in the Trollhättan area used the day today just to secure a picture of their car in front of the big Saab sign at Stallbacka.
With the Saab signs down at Stallbacka, and at the ANA dealership building there nowadays are signs for a German brand, so that we have left of the three popular “Saab-destinations” in Trollhättan that the average Saab tourist visited is the Saab Car Museum.
In the future I’m sure the museum will be more and more important for us Saabnuts, and the absolute obvious place to visit if you visit Trollhättan, so I have a crazy idea.
I don’t know if this is something that’s possible to realize, but why not take one of the big Saab signs you see when you enter the Saab factory area at Stallbacka and place it on the museum area (or if that’s impossible – take one of the other big signs that is mounted on the buildings and mount it on a wall outside the museum), preferably so future Saabnuts can take a picture with this sign in the background.
Again, I must precise that it’s just a idea, but I hope Nevs and Saab Car Museum notices this idea and have a look at if it’s possible to do this for us nostalgic(??) fans…

A movement in motion

June 21, 2016June 21, 2016 by Red J

I really don’t have a clue what this means but it seams it to be their new claim, according to this video (3:03). It is a nice alliteration, but what do they want to say?

https://youtu.be/56PSiTmpJdE

A new brand, a new logo and a new claim. The font for the logo looks very futuristic, but the new site and the new light font feels too clean too …. too similar to that company with the one fruit.

In an interview with Jonas Hernquist, sales and marketing director at NEVS, at the local newspaper he says what I think is the real reson to leave the name SAAB behind.

The second reason is that we are going to invest billions in products in the coming years, we want to do it in our own name and with our own brand, not a brand that we have borrowed and licensed from someone else.

So maybe it is not a bad idea at all. But despite the new logo and the new web site, and flags and lanyards I’m still missing one important thing. The car that will have that brand name.

A picture of a “so called” grill has been distributed with the press release, and yes it is not complicated to imagine this on the grill of a 9-3. But it would haave been nicer if they would have been able to not only present an empty shell, but also to show how are they goint to fill that shell. I mean, it must have been 2 or 3 moths ago when I read a very short article, that the development of the NEVS 9-3 was completed. Since then we have seen a black 9-3 with a hideous front grill, that converted the SAAB 3-piece grill into a normal 1-piece grill, but besides of that it looked just like the last SAAB 9-3, so I can’t imagine that this is the NEVS 9-3.

I wish them well, and I will follow all their steps as I’ve done in the past, but I think It will take me some time till I learn to call a car developed in Trollhättan a NEVS.

And BTW, on a video at the ttela.se site I’ve seen that the SAAB Wording at the factory is not there anymore.

The Brand question seems to still be alive

February 20, 2016 by Red J

I know we have said that the brand name question is over. Well it wasn’t me, and I still repeat my sentence.

Show me a picture of the factory without the SAAB wording and I will stop talking about it.

Still a SAAB factory?

Tomorrow

January 24, 2016 by Red J

NEVS new homepage
Maybe any of you has noticed it, but NEVS has changed the homepage of their site. The pictures of the MY14 9-3 are gone, which is good from my point of view, but on the other side the homepage is as vague as it could be. We know what they mean, but who else does? Ok, maybe all the people that visit that site knows about it.

But has this anything to do with Tomorrow(Monday)? No, I don’t think so, and as NEVS is not appearing in the exhibitors list of the Geneva Motor show, I expect, that we will be seeing those northern lights for the next weeks.

But tomorrow something will happen at NEVS facilities, something that I consider quite strange, but something that has a clear message.

NEVS to deliver 150,000 EV’s to Panda New Energy Ltd. (Update)

December 17, 2015December 17, 2015 by Red J

Nevs has signed a Strategic Collaboration Agreement with Panda New Energy Ltd., about 150,000 9-3 Sedan EV
National Electric Vehicle Sweden (Nevs) and the Chinese company Panda New Energy Co., Ltd. have signed a strategic collaboration agreement. According to the agreement, Nevs will provide Panda with 150,000 9-3 sedan electric vehicles until the end of 2020. In addition, the agreement also includes 100 000 other EV products and services from companies associated to Nevs and its owners. The total value of the agreement is 78 billion RMB.
Read moreNEVS to deliver 150,000 EV’s to Panda New Energy Ltd. (Update)

Press Release: Nevs celebrates ground breaking ceremony for Production and R&D in Tianjin, China

June 29, 2015June 29, 2015 by Hjelle

Kai-Johan-Jiang-Tianjin20150628 — Nevs’ Chairman Kai Johan Jiang at the ground breaking ceremony in Tianjin June 28 // Photo-credit: Nevs

Like the news from last Wednesday said, Nevs celebrated the ground breaking yesterday in Tianjin, China, There will they build facilitates for production and R&D, with a capacity for 200 000 units/year.

Chairman Kai Johan Jiang was on site together with president Mattias Bergman, and they even had more news to come with; a new partner. This new partner is Teamsun, a it-company based in Beijing. Together with State Research Information Technology (SRIT), Teamsun and Nevs has registered two new joint ventures, one for production and one for R&D. The investments in the joint venture will be initially 1 billion RMB/CNY (~161 million USD) respectively 200 millions RMB/CNY (~32.2 million USD). At the same time, Nevs announces a agreement with Bank of China that grants Nevs a credit of 10 billion RMB/CNY (~1.61 billion USD) to support Nevs business in China.

So what now? Nevs is as we see on their way back in business, but this is only a small step. There will be many more small (and of course some big) steps before we all can breathe out, and the Stallbacka factory again produce cars again. We can only cross our fingers, if the good news continues as it has done so far this spring I hope it not will be the last positive news we hear from the guys at Nevs this summer!

Read the full press release under the picture!

The ground breaking ceremony in Tianjin June 28 Photo-credit: Nevs — The ground breaking ceremony in Tianjin June 28 // Photo-credit: Nevs