Chinese car maker BAIC has revealed it paid $200 million (£125m) for Saab technology, including he rights to three vehicle platforms and two engine technologies.
BAIC said the technology would accelerate the car maker's development, and kick-start a 33 billion yuan (£3bn) vehicle R&D project that will run over the next three years.
The Saab acquisition includes the intellectual property for Saab's 9-5 and 9-3 and some equipment to make them. Further details have not been made public.
"Someone has commented that the purchase of Saab's intellectual property can help cut short the development time for Beijing Auto's own-brand passenger vehicles by four to five years," said BAIC Chairman Xu Heyi. "We basically agree with the view."
BAIC will also launch two new models of its own-brand vehicles next year.
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Re: BAIC paid Saab £125m for tech
Jerry99: BAIC hasn't bought the SAAB brand name just the old products. Vectraman: When a tiny car maker like SAAB incurs excessive development costs by a mammoth company like GM they can only make a loss. That together with being denied access to those developments is only going to increase that deficit with only being able to sell outdated products compared to the competition. That's why SAAB has been unprofitable but it does serve the purpose for GM to use it to get rid of the company now they have rapped SAAB's patent cupboard. -------------------------- There are nearly 4,000 jobs at risk by this closure and a further estimated 11,000 jobs that could be impacted should SAAB go. I firmly believe SAAB employees have worked many unpaid hours because they so needed to get away from GM. For GM to shutter the brand, with all that effort going to waste, would be an injustice.
Re: BAIC paid Saab £125m for tech
Agreed, agreed, but Saab hardly sell any cars in Europe either. It's all about America.
I have a big beef with what GM has done to Saab in the past. Saddling the 900 with the old Vectra chassis, canceling the 9-5, getting rid of the hatchback 9-3, all that stuff makes me sick.
But current management has no choices. The billions that are necessary to create a genuine competitor to BMW, Audi and Mercedes are not in place, period. New clothes on Cadillacs is a losing proposition, premium brands need a USP that's backed by billions.
Think how long it took Piech to establish Audi. He sunk billions and billions in the 5 cylinder engine, then in aerodynamics, then in turbocharging and Quattro, then in Pumpe Duese diesel technology, then in FSI direct injection, as well as LED-light gimmicks etc. etc.
Audi has delivered the best interiors in the business for 20 years now. It has employed the genius of Martin Smith, Freeman Thomas, Peter Schreyer, Walter deSilva and Wolfgang Egger, it has dominated Le Mans for a decade and it still does not have the same cachet as BMW and Mercedes.
Look at Lexus, for crying out loud. The LS 400 is now 20 years old, and they are absolutely nowhere.
You may love SAAB, and as a former owner so do I, but the reality is you need to be over forty to remember the last time SAAB innovated (with the turbo, which btw was installed on a jurassic, if charismatic, Triumph engine)
GM have neither the technology, nor the finances nor the managerial or intellectual bandwitdth to do something about SAAB. The chance has come and gone. This is cars, not clothes or shavers.
Also, an honourable death will be much nicer than the spectacle we had to endure with Rover, frankly. Or Mitsubishi and Chrysler since Mercedes abandoned them, come to think of it. What an insult their current line of cars is compared to past glories. Don't start me on Geely buying Volvo. Best case scenario, Saab will go the way of Tatra or Wartburg. Worst case, the way of TVR.
There's a place in Switzerland called Dignitas that springs to mind. Assuming GM pays out good severance packages, honours warranties and keeps parts flowing, they are doing the right thing.
Re: BAIC paid Saab £125m for tech
When a car maker can`t sell enough cars to turn a profit because there are not enough buyers, it needs to down size quickly or die, just like any other business. When a giant company comes along, buys and subsidises it, it just forces prices up for all of us.