Almedalen Archives - Swadeology

Saab’s taxis at Almedalen

Something quite cool happened at the recent Almedalen conference – a big gathering of political, social and business movers and shakers here in Sweden.

A small company called Great Beyond wanted to show their skills (PR, social, etc) and decided they’d help out at Almedalen using Saabs as their vehicle of choice. What unfolded was a wonderful service for busy attendees, a useful promotion for Saab and a useful vehicle for Great Beyond to show their services.

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The basics of their service was to make available the fleet of three Saab 9-5 Aeros they’d borrowed, to be used as free taxis at Almedalen. People could contact the Great Beyond crew via Twitter on their smartphone and request a ride. The crew looked up the person’s GPS co-ordinates, located the estranged client and delivered them to where they needed to be.

Almedalen is centered around Visby, on the island of Gotland, off Sweden’s east coast. Being an island, the number of regular taxis is limited and well, let’s just say Almedalen’s a very busy time of year.

How busy? Here are a few of their stories.

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The Saabs drove when all others were unavailable

When Anna-Sara and her colleagues from the Swedish Exhibition Centre in Gothenburg, landed at the airport outside of Visby, the focus was on quickly go into Almedalen. But first they had to go to their rental house a bit outside the town and leave the luggage. Imagine their surprise when the taxi queue was empty of cabs – but full of irritated people.

After an hour, people start walking to town from the airport. Along the highway you could see hordes of people dragging a whole week’s luggage along behind them. Meanwhile, a friend of Anna-Sara tweeted about the fact that they could ‘fly’ all the way to Almedalen (in a Saab).

– Is it really true, can you at Saab bring us all the the way?
– Just tell us your coordinators, and we will spot you on the GPS!

By iPhone and Twitter, it was easy to come into contact with Saab. The rest of the week, Saab team get many greetings from Anna-Sara with colleagues.

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By chance, the journalist Sofia Mirjamsdotter was the first person to fly all the way to Almedalen with Saab. Sofia is also known as @Mymlan on Twitter and has thousands of followers.

She has previously worked at one of Norrland’s largest newspapers, but is now freelance and is a frequent lecturer on the topic of social media. A trendspotter in the field, many are listening to her words.

Just one hour after the first journalist had a ride with Saab, more journalists started to contact us. For example Sara Gunnarsdotter or @Saragugu as she is called on Twitter.

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The G-man and the Saab

All countries have men of influence behind the scenes. Sweden is no exception. Kristoffer Tamsons was (Prime Minister) Fredrik Reinfeldt’s personal speechwriter during the 2006 election and is now the Prime Minister’s head of planning.

– Is that you, Kristoffer? (One of the Saab team knows Kristoffer after meeting him several times.) Are you waiting for a taxi to Visby?
– That’s right, this is a taxi disaster…
– We have a seat over in a brand new Saab Aero XWD.
– Is it true, do you run the taxi? Saab? Do you really mean that you run that nice car? Of course I want to go with you!

During the trip to the Almedalen an informed conversation about Saab follow. The journey ends with best wishes for Saab.

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The (friendly) competition

Saab carried more than hundred politicians, leaders and journalists during Almedalen. Many trips were to and from the airport. We in the Saab team had to think a number of times about how all the taxi drivers would respond to our presence? Proud but a little nervous, we started to drive.

When we rolled in at the airport – three Saab 9-5 Aero XWD’s in convoy – it was a powerful feeling to see everyone’s eyes on the cars.

Our concerns over taxi drivers’ reaction? There were more passengers than there were cars on the island. After a few rides, we were even friends with some of the taxi drivers.

– Is that the new Saab?
– Brand new!
– Great. I love Saabs, I was driving one before but now I drive minivan. Oh, how boring my new life is in comparison.
– What do you like most about Saab?
– The feeling! What does it cost?!

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Award winners

These contacts – and all the other rides – resulted in Saab wining a prize. Saab won ”this year’s excitement at Almedalen”. Read more here.

What have we learned from this?

That a good story spreads itself!

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Swade here…….

I should stress here that the crew from Great Beyond took it upon themselves to do this. It wasn’t a request from Saab. They came up with the plan, contacted a dealer, secured the cars and provided all the services. We only found out about it as it was just beginning.

These stories and the notation they received for their services to attendees at Almedalen is a credit to them and we’re thankful that they chose to spread the news about Saab at this all-important Swedish event.

A little bit of Saab at Almedalen

We’ve already told you about the zero emissions Saab 9-3 ePower vehicles that are both on the roads and on display at Almedalen, the big socio-political love-fest on in Visby at the moment. We’ll hopefully have more on those vehicles later.

In the meantime, here’s a little of what’s happening at Almedalen….

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Saab’s representative at Almedalen is our Public Affairs officer, Anna Petre. Swedish publication Resume had a quick chat with her at Almedalan and it’s recommended reading for those who’d like to know a little more about what’s being talked about in regard to Saab at the event.

….we knew we would get a dip in finances in April. The plan was to solve it by letting Vladimir Antonov purchase our property and lease it back. The government said “yes”, but the European Investment Bank said “no”…..

Anna Petre has met politicians from all parties, but never Moderate leadership: – No, I have never met Fredrik Reinfeldt and Anders Borg. Their stance is that the Ministry of Industry has responsibility.

That last point is an interesting one and apparently there has been quite a bit of talk about this at the event (in Swedish).

We spoke to Anna yesterday about her program at Almedalen and this is what she had to say:

Anna, what are you doing in Almedalen?

– I meet parliamentarians and officials from departments and talk about Saab. It is important that relevant facts get enough scope. And, I also participate in seminars. The other day I spoke at an industry seminar about the political future of the automotive industry in Sweden. It was a real marathon seminar that lasted all afternoon. In the middle of my presentation Mats Odell (Odell is chairman of the parliamentary economic committee, editor’s note) stood up and said: “Anna. I just want to tell you that the EIB just approved the Saab Property deal.” And when he got up on stage to speak after me, he spontaneously decided to dedicate his speaking time to Saab and the EIB’s role in the Saab issue. This gave us more focus than originally planned.

How is the interest around Saab at the event?

– Huge! I would say that the Saab issue is one of the dominant issues here and I notice significant support from several directions.

Do you find time to talk about Saab’s product program as well?

– Yes, absolutely. We have brought both the 9-3 ePower and the new 9-5 SportCombi and we have them exhibited in the harbor. There are also cars for test drives and the SportCombi has attracted very high interest.

Are you the only Saab representative in Visby/Gotland?

– No, but there are not many of us. Technicians are needed for maintaining the cars and we have some product experts here as well.

What is the cost of participation in the “Almedalsveckan”?

– It cost us nothing this year. Our partners in the electric car project finance our participation.

What is on your program now?

– Later today I’ll go with some parliamentarians for an ePower test drive, and tomorrow I will be participating in a seminar on green cars.

Saab zero emissions ePower vehicles at Almedalen

Almedalen Week is an annual political and interest group love-in held in picturesque Visby, on the island of Gotland off Sweden’s east coast.

During this year’s Almedalen Week there will be a display of electric vehicles, and of course the Saab 9-3 ePower will be included in that display. Moreover there will also be two more Saab 9-3 ePower vehicles available for people attending the event to take for a test drive (or more accurately, be taken for a test drive – only Saab staff at Almedalen are allowed to drive but visitors can go for a ride).

This is not the first time an electric Saab 9-3 has graced Almedalen Week. In fact, the Saab 9-3 ePower’s genesis in the form of the True Electric 9-3 Convertible was on display at the show back in 2009.

The Saab 9-3 ePower is a collaboration between Saab Automobile, Boston power (battery partner), Electro Engine (battery management), Innovatum (project management) and Power Circle (electrical expertise). You can also see a background article on the construction of these zero emissions vehicles, which are based on the Saab 9-3 SportCombi.

The Saab 9-3 ePower vehicles will be on display at Almedalen Week from July 3 to 7 and whilst we’re not there personally, we will try to bring you more coverage from Almedalen this week.