Turkey's 'national car' deal enables Chinese company to pay all debts, open new plant
Turkey?s ?national car? agreement worth 40 million euros with China?s NEVS has enabled the company to recover from its financial difficulties, the firm has said.
The company said it has paid all of its debts and laid the foundation for a new production plant in China for its NV brand, while signaling it may continue without the Saab brand and produce a national electric car for China.
Sweden?s Saab sold its automotive company to U.S.-based General Motors in 1989 with the exclusion of the copyrights of the brand and the accompanying rights. GM was hopeful about entering the European market through the deal, but was ultimately unsuccessful.
GM eventually abandoned its aspirations and sold Saab in 2010 to a Dutch automobile manufacturer.
After struggling to avoid insolvency throughout 2011, the company petitioned for bankruptcy following the failure of a Chinese consortium to complete a purchase of the company after the purchase was blocked by GM, which opposed the transfer of technology and production rights to a Chinese company. In June 2012, it was announced that a newly formed company called National Electric Vehicle Sweden (NEVS) had bought Saab Automobile?s bankrupt estate. After a series of complicated talks, GM accepted the production of the first NEVS Saab 9-3 in Saab?s facilities in 2013. Full production restarted in December 2013, initially the same gasoline-powered 9-3 Aero sedans that were built before Saab went bankrupt.
NEVS wanted to insert an electric engine into the 9-3 sedan and produce it in both China and Sweden. Some 400 electric Saab 9-3 cars were produced in Sweden, but the main Saab company, which produces airplane engines, refused to grant permission for the brand to be used in such a manner....
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