Saab 9-3 back with a petrol engine?

When National Electric Vehicle Sweden (NEVS) bought Saab they planned to produce electric Saabs. But now they’re looking at relaunching the 9-3 with an ICE engine.

Finally, after what seemed decades of trying to find a way to divest itself of Saab, GM agreed a deal with National Electric Vehicle Sweden (NEVS) to take the reluctant Griffin down the dead-end route of mainstream electric cars.

NEVS plans to make a range of electric cars based on the assets they’ve bagged from GM (which is old Saab stuff, not the last 9-5) although NEVS did say it would be at least eighteen months before they had an electric Saab to sell.

But it now appears that NEVS don’t want to wait that long to start trying to get a return on their investment and are planning to get the Saab 9-3 rolling down the production line in Trollhatten, complete with petrol engines. How they’re going to do that is not exactly clear.

NEVS are hoping that GM will be prepared to play ball and provide them with engines to fit, a scenario that seems quite unlikely. They also say that if GM refuse to suplly engines for a re-birth of the 9-3, they have ‘Options with other Brands’.

Whether it’s even possible to revive the production line in Trollhatten in a sensible time frame with skilled staff is a big unknown, as is how practical it would be to re-engineer the 9-3 to take another maker’s engine (as we really can’t see GM playing ball).

So don’t hold your breath waiting for the Saab 9-3 to return to the market.

Source: Autoweek