2001 Saab 9-5 Se Wagon 4-door 3.0l on 2040-cars

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Koenigsegg plans a ‘CO2 neutral’ hybrid supercar

Fresh from receiving a 150 million-euro infusion from National Electric Vehicle Sweden, the Chinese-backed company that bought up Saab's assets out of bankruptcy, supercar maker Koenigsegg has signaled just what it plans to do under the new joint venture. Christian von Koenigsegg gave an interview to Top Gear in which he said he wants to develop an all-new supercar to sit below ultra-exclusive models like the Agera RS and Regera, priced at around ˆ1 million (about $1.15 million) to grow sales from 20 a year into the hundreds, because "our brand has outgrown our production volumes by quite a big margin." And it will feature a novel, "completely CO2 neutral" hybrid powrtrain using the "freevalve" camless combustion engine technology the company has been developing in concert with battery-electric power. "Given the freevalve technology, we can actually cold-start the car on pure alcohol, down to -30 degrees Celsius, so there's no need for any fossil fuel mix then," he told Top Gear. "The idea is to prove to the world that even a combustion engine can be completely CO2 neutral." Von Koenigsegg previously hinted at the setup after talking about how his engineers were responding to Tesla's claims that its forthcoming next-generation Roadster would be capable of a 1.9-second 0-60 mph time. He further hints that the new hybridized supercar will look unmistakably like a Keonigsegg but be in a different segment altogether from either the Agera RS or plug-in hybrid Regera. Consider us very much intrigued and eager to hear more. Meanwhile, Koenigsegg has said it plans to reveal the successor to the Agera RS next month at the Geneva Motor Show based on a refined version of the same supercharged V8 combustion engine. The new joint venture with NEVS, meanwhile, sees that company take a 65 percent ownership stake, with Koenigsegg holding the rest and contributing its trove of intellectual property, technology licenses and product design. NEVS also gets a 20 percent stake in Koenigsegg itself. Related Video: This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings. News Source: Top GearImage Credit: Drew Phillips Green Automakers Koenigsegg Saab Alternative Fuels Emissions Ethanol Hybrid Performance Supercars supercar NEVS koenigsegg agera rs koenigsegg regera

Saab's Victor Muller wanted to nix Griffin, return to airplane emblem

According to Just-Auto.com Victor Muller wasn't a fan of the Saab Griffin logo. The executive was quoted as saying he wanted to "abolish" the Griffin logo and return to the airplane emblem. Muller made it clear that if he'd had his way, the propeller would have replaced the Griffin across the Saab lineup long ago.
National Electric Vehicle Sweden, the company that recently bought Saab, was forced to abandon the Griffin logo due to the fact that the emblem is still used by truck manufacturer Scania. The manufacturer is reportedly concerned about potential Chinese counterfeiting - NEVS is owned by Youngman, a Chinese automaker - though it's unclear how that relationship would lead to illegal copies.
Either way, NEVS has said the loss of the Griffin logo isn't that important to the company so long as it can continue to build on the Saab name. Muller, meanwhile, said he wishes NEVS luck in the company's electric-vehicle endeavor, but that he doesn't understand its new business model.

NEVS, the company that took over Saab, gets new majority owner

Chinese real estate conglomerate Evergrande Group, a key investor behind troubled electric vehicle startup Faraday Future, has acquired a 51 percent stake in NEVS. That's the Chinese-backed Swedish electric vehicle company that purchased the assets of Saab out of bankruptcy in 2012. The investment by subsidiary Evergrande Health Industry Group was valued at the equivalent of $930 million and is expected to help NEVS develop new EVs. Evergrande said it paid the first installment of $430 million on Jan. 15, with the remainder due by the end of the month. The remaining 49 percent stake is controlled by a holding company controlled by NEVS founder Kai Johan Jiang. "It means that NEVS will get a financial (sic) strong main owner who is very interested in developing our vision about green mobility transport solutions for the future," NEVS CEO Stefan Tilk said in a statement. NEVS, short for National Electric Vehicle Sweden, owns production facilities in Trollhattan, Sweden, and Tianjin, China, with another under construction in Shanghai. In late 2017 the company launched what apparently was limited production of the 9-3 EV, an electric vehicle based — you guessed it — on the old Saab 9-3 platform. The company now says it will be built in Tianjin starting later this year, with components coming from Trollhattan. It boasts a 186-mile range, in-car WiFi and a cabin air filter for the notoriously smoggy Chinese air. It also showed a battery-electric 9-3X concept at CES Asia in 2017, which is likely to be its next model pegged for production. The South China Morning Post, citing local media reports, says two of NEVS' models meet the standards for mass production in China. This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings. Definitely the best promotional video we've ever seen. Evergrande Health first came to Faraday Future's rescue back in 2017 with a promised $2 billion investment, but the two sides later went into arbitration in Hong Kong over a dispute about money following the first infusion of $800 million, leading the automaker to cut staff and wages last year, casting the future of FF into doubt. At the end of 2018, Faraday announced it had entered into a new restructuring agreement with an Evergrande Health subsidiary that sees them end litigation and jettison the previous investment agreement, taking Evergrande's investment in the company to 32 percent.