Another week of work has begun here at Saab. Another week to be patient whilst the deals that are in the pipeline are worked out and negotiated. It’s certainly not an easy time for people here. They are anxious, for sure, but they’re still here; that’s the most important thing.
We remain in somewhat of a holding pattern at the moment. We’re waiting for The Deal. While we’re waiting for The Deal, employees are returning from their customary summer vacations, arriving at work and going about whatever business they can. The carpark here at Saab was more full this morning than at any time over the last five or so weeks, a sight that was a pleasure to see on this cool, rainy Monday.
The Deal that our executive team are currently working on is the one that will carry us through this near-term liquidity shortfall and into the future, so that we can re-start production and get back to being a car company again, which would be a nice relief from our present role as a corporate piñata.
Saab has decided that the company will not be present at the 2011 Frankfurt Motor Show.
Presence at the show requires resources that Saab are currently allocating towards the restart of production in Trollhattan. Whilst it would be desireable to be at the show to help further Saab’s global presence, it is not considered an appropriate use of resources at this time.
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And some thoughts to add some context…..
There will be some consternation and hand-wringing over this announcement. Of course, it’s quite regrettable that we can’t be at Frankfurt. It would be great to be there and show our vehicles off to the world’s press and visitors to the show. We do have new vehicles to show there, too, cars that will be significant for us in various markets around the world (more on those here).
Right now, though, an exhibition at Frankfurt is just not doable and out of respect for our various stakeholders, it would have been very irresponsible to allocate resources in this direction at this particular time.
We need to get back to being a car company first, which is what we’re doing. There are a number of motor shows coming up in quick succession after Frankfurt and we can get back on that wagon pretty quickly when circumstances allow it.
Trollhättan, Sweden: Swedish Automobile N.V. (Swan) announces today that it issued a subscription notice for 4 million shares under the current EUR 150 million equity facility between Swan and GEM Global Yield Fund Limited. The exact number of shares to be issued and the price thereof will depend on the pricing period which commences today.
Swan and Saab Automobile AB continue their discussions with parties to obtain further short-term funding to be able to restart and sustain production.
A quick Saabosphere this week. Is it early or is it late? Not sure.
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This first one’s not a link, just a set of photos that no-one familiar with Saabs will find too surprising 😉
From Andrew……
BRING BACK THE HATCH!!!
Yes, I know it’s a wagon, but BBTH has been the common catchcry….
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I had the pleasure of sitting down to dinner last night with Rémi from Saabactu, a French Saab blog.
Saabactu is doing a great job of providing information for the French market. The site is well maintained, looks clean and is getting an audience, which is very encouraging for one of the bigger, but tougher European markets.
If you’re a French reader, make sure you bookmark it and check it out. There’ll be an interview with a certain writer here at Inside Saab appearing there in the coming weeks.
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I know what you’re thinking…..
I’m a lover of three-cylinder two strokes and I’m an iPhone user. Where can I get an iPhone cover that looks like a three-cylinder gasket?
Nice to get away from who’s-demanding-what-from-whom for a change. And yes, I’m kind of jealous that I haven’t got to stuff like this yet (but there’ll be time for that).
Readers who access this site on a mobile device should notice a slight improvement in the service rendered by Inside Saab. It should get even better over the weekend, too, with a few bits of custom tweakage about to happen.
Those waiting for late-Friday news can keep waiting until a future Friday.
It’s *nice* to see those accustomed to reporting bad news moving on to reporting future bad news in the absence of current bad news.
My 900 wouldn’t start this morning. Am hoping it’s just a battery. Booked in at ANA for service next week, anyway. It’s about time.
It’s been almost a week but I’m still enjoying IntSaab so much that my wristband is yet to come off!!
The poll results are in and as of right now, the winner by a sizeable margin in the six-horse race was to retain the current 9-? naming convention.
The results from Facebook were quite similar, with nearly 50% voting for the 9-? naming convention. Second place at FB was using the 900 name, with around 280 votes.
There is a similar poll still underway at Saabs United if people are interested in contributing.
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It was great to hear some varying opinions and other reasonings in comments to the poll. Personally speaking, I think the poll produced the right outcome. The 9-? naming convention respects the company’s heritage whilst allowing for different size vehicles, as well.
There is (rightly) some confusion over the ‘x’ attachment, however I think that perhaps we need to start pushing the idea that it’s a type of vehicle (crossover type variant) rather than a designation for the vehicle having XWD. Clearly, some ‘x’ vehicles dont actually have XWD.
Of course, how to designate trim levels with a model range is the next question that some answered in comments. The historical use of Linear, Arc, Vector and Aero is mentioned, some people like it and some people don’t. Some markets understand it and some markets don’t, which is why I think it’s used in some places and not in others (where ‘Premium’ is used between ‘Aero’ and …. nothing).
Overall, though, I think the naming convention is good. It’s unique to Saab, it makes it pretty clear as to what playground a model is sitting in, and it doesn’t confuse people with a mishmash of letters that mean nothing to those who are unfamiliar.
Thanks to all for participating in the poll and for sharing your opinions. I’m sure there were a few curious eyes in the marketing team looking over this one 🙂
I made this video last year, whilst at the launch for the new Saab 9-5 in Sweden. We were at Volvo’s test track, which Saab had hired for the launch. I stumbled upon the video today as I was tidying up my hard drive and it reminded me of just how incredibly good the XWD system is.
You’ll need to be patient with this one. It’s around 9.5 minutes long and it shows a few different things. I think your patience will be rewarded, however, with an exhibition of just how incredibly intelligent and effective Saab’s XWD really is.
The video starts off looking at Drivesense, the switchable vehicle setting that debuted in the Saab 9-5. Drivesense changes the steering, suspension and throttle response settings according to selections made by the driver: comfort, sport or intelligent. In the video, a display is connected to show how intelligent mode varies the inputs according to conditions (and how it delays those variations if required – e.g. not changing steering settings whilst you’re cornering).
Later on (at around 5:30 in the video), there are some amazing displays of grip thanks to the Saab XWD system. Consider the conditions (very wet), the speed and the way that Stefan is pulling the steering wheel. The car just never got out of control. Absolutely amazing.
A lot of vehicle testing takes place where the car is driven around a circuit by real people. There are times when this is absolutely necessary. People with experience in such things need to ‘feel’ the car as it develops. In some instances, however, the testing process can be hampered by human error because humans are ‘variable’. That is, they won’t necessarily repeat the exact same action time after time after time.
If we can develop a machine to do some of these tests, you get the same circuit driven the same way every time and the vehicle data retrieved from such a test should be based on consistent inputs in every respect. More than that, steering robots are actually able to give more precise and more dramatic (i.e. faster) steering inputs that humans can, and they don’t get tired either.
The simple version of “How” involves a track modelled on GPS data and some sophisticated hardware being installed into the car to steer it according to this pre-programmed course. The hardware used to control the steering is a steering robot from Vehico and the work is done in cooperation with them. The steering robot is currently only able to perform so-called ‘open loop’ tests (steering as function of time) such as step-steer, sine-sweep steer, and sine-with-dwell steering, which are used for vehicle dynamics characterisation. The task for Klas and Carl, which even the experts say is very challenging one, was to create the control software necessary to control the steering such that the vehicle follows a pre-defined path using advanced GPS and motion sensors as input data.
The guys responsible for this job were Klas and Carl, two students from Chalmers University who completed this project in conjunction with Saab as their Masters thesis.
Their thesis presentation was made back in June and I’ve just been forwarded a copy of the video they made as part of that presentation. In the video, you can see the robotic steering system in action, a vehicle’s eye view of the road they’re driving as well as speed and tracking information.
It’s all fascinating stuff and indicative of just some of the technical work that goes on behind the scenes here at Saab.
Saab Cars North America chief Tim Colbeck was speaking to the Motor Press Guild in the US earlier this week, when he mentioned that the replacement for the current Saab 9-3 might be released under a new name.
The big question: what should that name be?
To the polls ….. with a few generic and a few specific options available for your vote. You can elaborate on your vote in comments.
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[poll id=”8″]
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Saabs have traditionally had numeric names, starting with two-digits (92-99) then moving to three and four digits (900, 9000) before going to the current format, badged as “to the power of” but written as 9-3, 9-5, etc.
Very few Saabs have been deliberately and solely marketed with an alpha name – the Saab Sonett comes to mind – but a few others have been come to be known by alpha names. They were often variations on an existing model, like the Viggen, the Turbo-X, the Saab Sport and the Monte Carlo.
I had another extraordinary weekend last weekend, attending the 2011 IntSaab event in Finland. These big Saab meetings are so inspiring. The opportunity to break bread with a big group of long-term and hardcore Saab nuts is one that we should all take advantage of at least once. I’ve been very lucky to do events like these several times now, and it never ceases to amaze or inspire me.
Saab needs its core fan base. We need you to preserve the integrity and history of the brand. Of course, we need you to drive Saabs, both old and new, and as part of that it’s our job to make cars that both adhere to and advance the Saab brand in the future.
I want to thank the Saab Club of Finland for hosting an excellent event this year. The organising team and their volunteers made everything run as smooth as silk and you’ve given me a taste for IntSaab events that will linger and grow as we all wait for next year’s event at Spa, in Belgium.
Below is my final gallery of cars. Apologies if I haven’t got your car in there, but hopefully it’s been shown somewhere in the previous IntSaab 2011 postings.
Saab is going to be moving into two very important markets in the new future. Both China and Russia offer huge growth potential for our sales network and last weekend, our Russian importer, Armand Import, held two Saab 9-5 preview events. August 5 was for Saab fan clubs and another event was held for prospective customers on August 8.
I received the following report from Armand earlier today.
As a result of the events on the weekend, Armand collected over 200 completed surveys that will be used for customer profiling, segmentation, re-creation of the customer database and identification of customer preferences in terms of the vehicle trim levels and options offered.
Armand intentionally did not invite any automotive journalists to keep both events exclusive and private. The press will get their turn when the official sales commence. Some bloggers were invited, however, and have posted reviews of the event(s) on their private blogs (see smotra.ru and saablog.ru).
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The event on August 5th was held outdoors in front of Armand’s dealer center exclusively for the members of Saab fan clubs in Russia. Attendance was via preliminary registration only.
In a wise move, Armand chose to include the administrators of Saab clubs’ in all stages of the event planning so as to build relationships with the opinion leaders and ensure support on Saab forums, auto blogs and social media platforms.
A total of 167 clubs members registered for the event. Invitation and feedback was posted on major Saab clubs’ forums.
Every guest received a gift – T-shirt with Saab and Armand logo. Together with DFI Accessories, Armand arranged for the sale of original Saab accessories during the event with a 15% discount. Complimentary refreshments were served.
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The event on August 8th was held indoors from 11 am through 9 pm on the second floor of Armand’s dealer center for prospective buyers by preliminary registration only. A total of 129 prospective buyers registered for the event.
Again, every guest received a gift – Saab water bottle, baseball cap or pen. And again, Armand arranged for the sale of the original Saab accessories during the event with 15% discount.
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Thanks to members of the Saab Clubs in Russia and Drive.ru for use of the photos. More great photos here.
