In this blog: EV production news are all around these days and here one more – the new electric Saab 9-3 is now rolling off an assembly line in Sweden.The new brand owner, NEVS, surprised by stating the resurrected company will only make electric Saabs. It turned out this won't be the case, though, as they're now building 2.0 l turbo 9-3 in China...
NEVS is short from National Electric Vehicle Sweden and the news from the company says electric 9-3's mass production will start sometime this fall (or winter). And right now production started means Saab began to build some 200 electric 9-3 cars at its Trollhattan factory. Once ready they'll ship these over to China for some thorough testing in the Qingdao province (spring and summer 2014).
Currently they're also in a process of acquiring a certificate and plan to launch the electric 9-3 on some European markets in 2015. Doesn't sound very specific, but it's all we have for now.
Speaking of range Saab 9-3 is supposed to do roughly 200 km on a charge, but that could be by NEDC. It's usually 20-30% less in real world conditions.
Longer trips requires more energy, so they will test a new tech in the process, that is supposed to provide up to 300 km range on a single charge. Sounds better and we'll be happy to see it in a real 9-3.
If Saab 9-3 makes it to the market with such a range, it will be more attractive than most ot the other EV, save for Tesla, which are capable of half this range. Boring, but we'll have to keep waiting, to find out.
