#sweden

Two years ago, China’s Geely bought Sweden’s (and Ford’s) Volvo lock, stock, and barrel. Among the assets: A few good Volvo platforms, along with a fair technology licensing contract from Ford. However, the platforms are not getting younger, and from what I heard back then, the licenses with Ford also have their limits. Geely has to invest into the future if Volvo is supposed to have one. Price of admission to the future: Many times the purchase price of the car company.

Anemic demand is causing Volvo to shut down their main Swedish factory for one week, starting October 29th.

When Volvo introduced the S60 in 2011, the Swedes advertised their mid-sized sedan as the naughtiest Volvo ever thanks to a 300HP turbocharged engine. While I’m sure former “R owners” would disagree, the S60 has met with sales success with over 18,000 units sold so far this year, a 14% increase over last year. In 2012 Volvo added a less powerful FWD model to the mix to cut the price of entry. For 2013 Volvo has further expanded the S60 line by adding a torque vectoring AWD system to the lightest S60. Volvo also tells us they have completely refreshed their T5 engine for 2013 and tweaked the transmission for the naughty Volvo’s first retouch ahead of the rumored 2014 refresh. Huh? Yep, Volvo’s gettin’ down with the yearly refresh. Does that make the T5 AWD the naughtiest Volvo ever? Let’s find out.

Volvo’s Chinese owners at Geely encounter something in Europe that is unheard of in China: A drop in car sales. Volvo has to cut production in Sweden by about 10 percent, and will let 200-300 contract workers go, Reuters says.

Part of Saab’s presumptive “quirky” image is a serious lack of funds. Saab “bled red like a stuck pig” as Car & Driver so delicately put it. Saab was sold when GM ran out of money. Victor Muller didn’t have the funds, and Saab’s future owner, Made-in-China Swede Jiang Dalong also seems to suffer the cash flow problem that is so familiar to all who touch Saab. The presumptive buyer has received an ultimatum by the bankruptcy administrators: Pay in full until Friday, or the deal is off.

Victor Muller managed to sell out to China after all. Today it was announced (full press release here) that Muller’s Spyker and former Saab suitor Youngman will form two companies. Spyker calls them “joint ventures,” but they look more like companies owned mostly by Youngman, with Spyker holding a token share.

Bringing suit against GM for not letting Saab live another day could be turning into a popular sport. Lars Holmqvist, former head of Europe’s automotive supplier body CLEPA, and as such an insider when it comes to the latest Saab dirt, says that spurned Youngman of China is also thinking of suing GM.

A hitherto unknown Chinese business man who leads a shadowy “consortium” buys the assets of Saab. The media eats it up. Dalong “Kai Johan” Jiang takes the microphone and says what everybody wants to hear: “Electric cars powered by green electricity is the future and electric cars will be built in Trollhättan.” Jiang says there is a huge market for these made-in-Trollhättan EVs, waiting in China.

Nobody dares to say that it does not make sense at all. We say it.

Even after its death, Saab is still good for some excitement. Today, the Wall Street Journal breathlessly reported that an “electric-vehicle consortium buys Saab assets.” When you click on the link in Google, you get your assets handed to you via a rude 404: Page not found. The same is happening with many sites that reported a sale of Saab’s assets to a company called National Electric Vehicle Sweden (NEVS), which is as Swedish as chopsticks.

What is behind those missing links? Who is the nice man who goes thumbs up next to China Communist Party Polit Bureau member Li Keqiang? And why has he allegedly just bought Saab?

Fritz Henderson could not save Saab.

Victor Muller could not save Saab.

Vladimir Antonov could not save Saab

Pang Qinghua could not save Saab.

Rachel Pang could not save Saab.

Now, Barack Obama is supposed to save Saab.

At least that’s how the Swedish metalworker union IF Metall sees it.

Before and after Saab had gone bankrupt, pipe-dreamers thought that the company can be revived with just a few million dollars. The number commonly used was $50 to $70 million. We maintained that it would cost a few billion dollars to get the company going again.

As it turns out, we were way too optimistic.

A group of 41 Saab U.S. dealers today petitioned a U.S. Bankruptcy Court to put Saab Cars North America into involuntary Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, Automotive News [sub] reports. Last Friday, the dealers had threatened to file a Chapter 7 for involuntary liquidation, but changed their minds. Leonard Bellavia, a lawyer representing most of Saab’s U.S. dealers, explains:

Tom Carpenter, co-owner of Auto Center Southeast in Groveport, OH, had three Saturn dealerships. In 2009, GM euthanized Saturn, and Carpenter had to look for new cars to sell. Now, he is looking again.

The story on Saab pulling the plug on the diagnostic computer, and hence on repairs that need that access, ruffled a lot of feathers. The Church of St. Victor is so angry at the apostate article that it broke its self-imposed code of silence and mentions TTAC by name. Delusional as they are, they believe that their links send us traffic. Selfless as we are, we probably have done more to Saabsunited’s fame than any other site. Ingrates as they are, they call our story

“the most stupid article I have ever seen! This website has no clue how things work and this is why we never refer to them… I’m making a one time side-step from that policy!”

In their rage, they overlooked a small detail …