Secret electric “Saab”: NEVS Emily GT claims 1,000 km range

It looks like Saab engineers secretly developed the best electric car to come out of Trollhättan yet – there is only one problem. The Swedish factory has been put into hibernation as new owner NEVS is facing bankruptcy. Still, the EV might be worth waking up to.

Taking a step back, however, reports came out in March that National Electric Vehicle Sweden (NEVS), the Swedish electric car subsidiary of Chinese real estate group Evergrande, was laying off almost all its employees and put the former Saab factory in Trollhättan into “hibernation”. Still, it appears that the 20 remaining staff continued to hope and now came out with an announcement that could put NEVS back on the map.

The NEVS Emily GT now revealed it is a sporty saloon with four 90 kW wheel motors that should be able to cover more than 1,000 kilometres on a 175 kWh battery. NEVS hopes to be able to produce the electric car, after all, despite the threat of insolvency.

Following the Saab insolvency in 2011, National Electric Vehicle Sweden was founded in 2012 and took over the Trollhättan plant with the help of Chinese investors. Production in Trollhättan ramped up again for a short time only due to various financial problems. In 2019, the Chinese real estate company Evergrande, with its EV ambitions, took a majority stake in NEVS.

When Evergrande got into financial trouble in October 2021, NEVS started looking for a new owner. In the end, however, no one took over. Still, Evergrande claimed in March it was giving the NEVS subsidiary a “new business direction” but failed to provide details.

https://vimeo.com/469735410/36628ebc9c?embedded=true&source=vimeo_logo&owner=105811875

Whether this new direction could take the form of the Emily GT remains to be seen. Interim CEO at NEVS, Nina Selander, appears to be hoping as much. She told Carup the car was so stylish, good and modern that it deserved to be built.

The company even went into prototyping in 2020, but with the crisis hitting, the project was reduced to six driveable cars.

“The project is about 1.5 years away from being able to go into production,” said Peter Dahl, the lead engineer behind the NEVS Emily GT and Saab man since 1994. “Everything is in place to take it further into production. The prototypes are completely drivable, except that the airbag and Autobraking systems are missing.”

So it appears that it all depends if someone wants to come forward and take it into production. Any takers?

carup.se, linkedin.com (Peter Dahl)