SAAB 9-3 car goes back into production as NEVS’ first all-electric car

National Electric Vehicle Sweden (NEVS), the Chinese-backed successor of SAAB, has been closing multi-billion contracts to sell electric vehicles over the last year, but it didn’t have much to show for until now.

The automaker announced today that its first electric car rolled off the production line at its new Tianjin factory yesterday.

The vehicle is a new all-electric version of the SAAB 9-3 sedan – now called the NEVS 9-3.

They claim that the current facility allows for the production capacity of 50,000 electric vehicles per year and that the second phase will increase the capacity to 220,000 units per year.

NEVS is still not revealing too many details about the vehicle even though it is seemingly now in production.

They only released the following bullet points:

• ACAC (Always Clean Air Cabin) – Filter efficiency up to 99%, reducing 500ppm to 25ppm in less than 30 seconds.
• Always a new feeling
• Over-the-air software updates
• Fantastic driving and riding experience – Low center of gravity with smart suspension geometry and tuning. Based on 70 years of engineering excellence.
• 300 km range
• Highest speed: 140 km / h

Pictures from the event:

Electrek’s Take

They actually don’t really need to reveal much of anything to the public about the vehicle since the production is apparently already reserved for fleets.

Since NEVS launched, its Chinese owners have announced several deals for the company to make massive fleets of electric cars for Chinese companies. NEVS signed a framework deal worth about 8.5 billion crowns ($1 billion) with China Volant Industry Co. (Volinco) for 20,000 electric cars last year and Panda New Energy, a new energy vehicle leasing company in China, ordered 150,000 9-3 Sedan electric vehicles in 2015.

They also recently announced a partnership with Didi, China’s massive ride-sharing company, to develop their next generation electric vehicle and release it as part of Didi’s fleet.

NEVS’ 9-3 is also “prepared for mobility services” like Didi’s with features like “Digital Car-key in smart-phone App, Fleet-Management Portal, Vehicle-control by smart-phone, and Personalized user-data.”