The Saab 9-3 ePower - will spawn a 70 car test fleet fo electric Saabs
The reborn Saab are bringing the first electric Saab to the Paris Motor Show – the Saab 9-3 ePower – which will lead to a Swedish test fleet of 70 cars in 2011.
It’s great to see Saab back doing what a car maker should be doing, instead of fighting for survival under the cosh of the big, bad Yanks. Sadly, Saab are doing what much of the car world is also doing; paying lip service to the concept of big electric cars. Oh, well.
Saab has created the Saab 9-3 ePower, and all electric Saab 9-3 SportWagon. The Saab 9-3 ePower gets a 184bhp electric motor to drive the front wheels through a single speed ‘box. Juice for the motor comes from 35.5 kWh batteries which are squeezed in to the space normally used for the exhaust system and fuel tank.
Saab reckons the 9-3 ePower will manage 124 miles on a full charge (which won’t get above 100 miles in the real world) which will take six hours from a domestic outlet. Performance isn’t terrible with a claimed 0-62mph of 9.5 seconds, although using the power to any great degree will play havoc with the range.
Saab say that the 903 ePower is a ‘…first step towards developing a potential production vehicle that will deliver the sort of advanced performance our customers expect’. We hope it’s just a platform for testing the drivetrain and that Saab will see sense and only produce smaller cars for urban areas.
But it’s all about being seen to be doing the right thing at the moment..
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