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.
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!
