Dongfeng, Mahindra, QingDao. I would never anticipate that after buying a swedish convertible I will learn about companies, with names sounding as when you play table tennis. And they would decide about the future of my beloved brand. Yes, the world is more and more globalised, but still...
OK. Saab is again in problems. The chinese city of QindDao doesn't fulfill its contractual obligations, in clear words it doesn't pay what was agreed to pay. So NEVS has no money for production. How nice.
Saabblog.net, sourcing swedish radio P4 West writes, the production will not continue until calendar week 33, which starts at 10. August 2014. This is 7.5 weeks from now on.
NEVS seeks for new partners in the Saab case. One of them is the indian Mahindra & Mahindra, nicknamed M&M, which is producing vehicles and is active in energy sector and farm equipment. M&M is a part of the huge Mahindra Group, which is with 180.000 employees larger than for example Microsoft (130k).
The second is DongFeng, a chinese state owned car manufacturer. It's one of the largest chinese car companies and established in 1969, one of the very old ones. They had joint activities with Nissan, Honda and Renault in the recent past.
The reason of interest is the PhoeniX platform. One consideration could be also the electric Saab, which was showcased in Trollhattan already 2-3 years ago. But after the recent announcement of Tesla motors, giving it's patents to the public, this might not be the case anymore.
Deals of this size are not done within weeks, so even the week 33, when the production should continue, is imho a very optimistic scenario.
So Saab is again in coma. For how long and how the "good morning" will look like, is unknown.
Btw. on this blog I use tags. In the dramatic GM/Victor Muller/NEVS times I had one tag called "saab drama" (see below). I never thought I will have to use it again.
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