Saab GM licenses: Swedish press review

The information on the subject is poor, which does not bother me, because my next days are full of career appointments. Time to look into the Swedish press. On the subject of licenses, the local TTELA, always well informed, unearthed a topic that we would not like.

Not only GM has something to say about Saab, but also BAIC. The Chinese bought the old Saab 9-5 platform and the platform of the 9-3 II - pre facelift model. This fact has caused trouble in the past, because BAIC partly sees the rights of Saab 9-3 technology in its own hands.

In China, the Saab 9-3 is now in the starting blocks as a BAIC C70 and should also come as an e-vehicle. BAIC jealously watches over its technology and sees a potential threat in every Saab buyer.

Any investor who wants to produce Saab 9-3 in Trollhättan now has to ask permission from both GM and BAIC, says Valdemar Lönnroth of the local newspaper. Is it really like that ? Crucial will be the wording in the contracts. We do not know them and I can not imagine that BAIC really has a say.

But if it is true, we would still have a mine in the abundant minefield around Saab. Which is nothing new.

Since proper Saab messages are currently missing, the TTELA also writes about the future of Saab employees. Production workers could find new jobs in the cold Swedish north. Mining is in demand, because they are looking for 5000 employees. Since Trollhättan is shingled, the mining industry in Saab City is trying to recruit new employees.

A serious topic for the municipality Trollhättan. Because in the city and in the neighboring communities threatens a mass unemployment and the bad news pile up. Not only in Uddevalla closes Volvo, also the cardboard production in Trollhättan with 80 employees, a company of the German Knauf Group, is about to be closed. Hard times when there is no buyer for Saab.

Dagens Industri is also working on the subject of GM. Nix Saab, no Opel is on the plan. The Opel unions are currently negotiating with Detroit to get more work into the works. A way to save Opel from bankruptcy, yes one writes this evil word really, to save.

Maybe strong Tobak, what Dagens Industri writes there. But on the subject of Opel you can see that GM just did not understand. As formerly with Saab, so now you play the game with the Russelsheimers. Cheap Korea Chevys with the same technology celebrate an earlier debut than the more expensive, but technically similar, Opel derivatives. A game that sounds familiar.

You can see how brand care works in Wolfsburg, where mastering the play of different platforms with the same technology but different designs is mastered in the meantime. GM never could and will never understand it.

For Opel a lousy situation, and also the felt number of brand new Korea GMs on our roads is increasing quite fast and surpasses in the optical presence of new Opels. I think that will be tough and the future in Rüsselsheim is raven black. If there really was a new thinking at GM V2.0, you would handle the brand better with the flash and not position it that way.

That is not our problem. My personal sympathies for Rüsselsheim are very limited, the memory of how unfriendly Opel has treated the Swedish “guest workers” is still too fresh.

Past, sponge over it. The Saab community is preparing for the Outside Saab meeting. There is also an update.

Text: tom@saabblog.net