Svenska Dagbladet: ”The entire Saab affair may be in danger”
The stars lit up the Stockholm evening of 26 January 2010. The atmosphere at Café Opera was hilarious as a family concert with Tomas Ledin. Victor Muller stood in the broad-striped suit, and drew an inflammatory speech as saliva spattered. Spyker had signed an initial agreement to buy Saab. But that's only one thing: Muller refused to tell where the money came from.
Exactly the same thing is happening right now: The electric vehicle consortium Nevs captured one in a crowd, their mouths as soon as the word funding is discussed. If one puts it mildly: It does not feel good. It might be possible to cost billions of dollars to start high-risk project with an electric car manufacturing. And yet is not the final contract is signed.
An acute uncertainty is the Saab brand, which is vital for the new electric vehicle consortium Nevs business plan. But there has been hampered. According to a source familiar with claims defense company Saab AB and Scania right to approve a new owner of the Saab brand to use. However, the administrators and Nevs do not think it necessary that authorization.
A source says now that Scania and Saab AB is prepared to take the brand issue to court. It's not very good.
The whole affair may thus be in danger. We should remember that Nevs yet just signed a preliminary agreement - the final signing is supposed to happen later this summer.
Let me discreetly remind that it has been already written several similar initial agreement to buy Saab: Koenigsegg and Hawtai are some eager buyers at press conferences showing off big smiles - and then hardened into ice when they had their Saabköp sink down as soufflés .
Let's go back to money. And give some thought to the second major project that Nevs protagonists, Kai Johan Jiang and Karl Erling Faithful, financed in Sweden: Namely, a test facility for bioenergy in Sveg, where they bought in by 80 percent.
According to sources, there was delay in funding - which came from Chinese state. Among other things, it took 1.5 years to get 23 million. The same sources say that all of Sveg were aware that it is very focused on technology transfer to China. Now that a full bioanläggning be built in Sveg is the quiet of a pine - it is said that the demand safer political decision.
If you express it mildly electric car market is also dependent on political decisions.
Behind Nevs is now part of the Chinese state energy company State Grid. At the same time the Chinese government for its large electric car venture and is in desperate need for new electric car technology. (Just as they were in need of bioenergy technologies). It is argued that no government money is included in Nevs funding, but if Chinese banks are behind the funding, we must realize two things:
1 Then the Chinese government involved.
2 So should not the production of electric cars in Trollhattan with costly punitive duties to export to China be first on priority list.
We have to keep asking until we are blue in the face: Who is willing to invest in this high risk project? And why?
Read original article in Swedish
