Itβs been a bit since we brought you any news of Faraday Future, the beleaguered electric car company that tried to take on Tesla but really only wound up taking onβ¦ debt.
And while Faraday is still allegedly alive and kicking, itβs now doing so without many of its original investorsβ¦ though that does not include Evergrande Group β the third largest property developer in China β who struck a deal with the fledgling automaker that awarded Evergrande a 32 percent stake and the ownership of Faradayβs Chinese operations.
But the shaky start of Faraday didnβt appear to scare the investment firm off the electric car industry, as itβs being widely reported that Evergrande has plunked down $930 million for a controlling stake in National Electric Vehicle Sweden (NEVS) β which, despite its name, is actually a Chinese consortium.
So, why does this matter? Because NEVS owns a brand thatβs beloved in America in a cult-following kind of a way, and refuses to die, despite multiple bankruptcies and that, my friends, is the Saab.
NEVS canβt use the Saab name or branding, but itβs been building vehicles on Saabβs 9-3 platform in Tianjin, China and two of the models NEVS is producing reportedly meet the standards of mass production.
NEVS has a team of 500 at an EV R&D firm in Sweden, two factories and another one in the works. One of the benefits of Evergrandeβs affiliation with the fledgling Faraday is that it can bring more factory space to the table: a Guangzhou factory that it was building for Faraday might come in very handy for NEVS who is a bit more ready to go.
So does any of this mean weβll ever see a Saab equivalent again? Probably not, but for Saab enthusiasts β of which there are way more on the web than I ever expected β NEVS version of βZombie Saab,β even from afar, is better than nothing.