The Saab name will not be used on electric cars made by brand owner NEVS, meaning Saab cars’ last bastion of survival has been extinguished.
23 Jun 2016 | 7185 Views | By Jimi Beckwith, Autocar UK
The chance of the Saab name being used on cars is gone, after parent company NEVS (National Electric Vehicle Sweden) agreed to not use the brand name.
This final confirmation follows years of uncertainty over Saab's future. NEVS’s agreement not to use the Saab name on any new cars comes after ...
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The chance of the Saab name being used on cars is gone, after parent company NEVS (National Electric Vehicle Sweden) agreed to not use the brand name.
This final confirmation follows years of uncertainty over Saab's future. NEVS’s agreement not to use the Saab name on any new cars comes after Saab AB, which now focuses primarily on the aerospace industry, revoked the brand name from NEVS.
Saab AB was parent company to Saab Automobile until 1990, when it sold the marque to General Motors.
According to a statement released by NEVS, the decision not to use the Saab name on its upcoming electric vehicles was made to give the NEVS brand more recognition, but Saab AB’s reclamation of the Saab brand name was undoubtedly an influential factor in the decision.
NEVS had previously produced a small number of cars under the Saab name: most notably the 9-3 of 2014. NEVS had ownership of Saab Automobile since August 2012, just three months after establishing itself in Sweden as a registered company. Its acquisition of Saab followed various rumours and takeover bids from both Spyker Cars and Koenigsegg – both of which failed.
NEVS is currently controlled by Sino-Swedish majority shareholder Kai Johan Jiang, who the company describes as a ‘biofuel industry pioneer’. NEVS plans to primarily serve the Chinese market at first, before catering for other global car markets later on.
Source: Autocar UK