Pristine 2008 Saab 9 3 Aero Convertible on 2040-cars

Auto blog

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 Sango autonomous shuttle rises from the ashes of Saab

National Electric Vehicles Sweden (NEVS), the company that purchased Saab's bankrupt carcass in 2012, has introduced an autonomous ride-sharing shuttle named Sango and announced plans to test it in real-world conditions. It also outlined a system named PONS that will allow operators and riders to connect with the shuttle. Saab famously claimed its cars were born from jets, but the Sango looks more like something you'd find in a store that sells small kitchen appliances than on an aircraft carrier sailing across the Atlantic. It wasn't designed to go fast, or to deliver engaging handling. Stylists intentionally gave it a boxy silhouette to maximize interior space and let operators offer three cabin configurations called private, social, and family, respectively. Its six seats can be moved around and rotated as needed, and the passengers can raise privacy walls if they don't feel like socializing with fellow riders. The shuttle's seating capacity drops to four with the walls raised. Chinese technology firm AutoX provided the Sango's self-driving hardware and software, though NEVS pointed out its shuttle is modular enough to use any autonomous system on the market. This is a wise strategy that widens its target audience. Operators will in theory be able to choose whether they want to purchase a turn-key self-driving shuttle or buy the basic structure and stuff their own technology into it. NEVS grouped the app customers will use to request a ride and a fleet management system into a software package it named PONS. Technical specifications haven't been released. All we know is that it's electric. NEVS confidently stated autonomous shuttles are closer to the mainstream than many think. "Getting from A to B with self-driving electric vehicles is not as far off as perhaps the car industry is implying. The era of one person per car and the era of owning a car are soon things of the past," opined Anna Haupt, the company's vice president of mobility solutions, in a statement. Engineers have started testing the first running Sango prototype at NEVS' headquarters in Trollhattan, Sweden. Looking ahead, the company plans to deploy a fleet of 10 autonomous shuttles in Stockholm, where they will be used by members of the general public. Autoblog learned from a company representative that testing will probably start in 2022, and that the firm is taking COVID-19-related concerns into account.

Saab begins 9-3 EV pilot production

To say that Saab has had a tough time lately would be like saying that it's been a little colder than usual this winter. After General Motors finally gave up and sold it to Spyker in 2010, Saab declared bankruptcy the following year. GM successfully blocked Spyker from selling Saab to Chinese automaker Youngman the following year, but ultimately it ended up in the hands of another Chinese consortium called NEVS. Standing as it does for National Electric Vehicle Sweden, the new owners promised not only to restart production of the long-suffering 9-3, but also to turn it into an electric vehicle. And that's just what it's doing.
The latest news coming out of Sweden indicates that NEVS/Saab has started building the first examples of the 9-3 EV. These first 200 or so examples are set to be shipped off to Qingdao - the Chinese city that is home to the Tsingtao brewery, hosted the sailing components of the 2008 summer games on Beijing, was supposed to host an IndyCar race in 2012 before it was canceled, and also itself just happens to own 22 percent of NEVS.
These first EVs have their batteries mounted down low in the chassis for a low center of gravity and have a range of about 20 miles on a full charge. That's absolutely paltry compared to the other EVs on the market: a Nissan Leaf will travel more than four times that distance, and a Tesla Model S will go ten times farther on a charge.