BAIC and Koenigsegg to take on Saab
Beijing Auto Works have teamed up with Koenigsegg to take on Saab according to Chinese media reports from late this afternoon.
The announcement comes as a shock to many, as it was expected that Shanghai GM would take on a sleeping partner roll in Saab from GM, but it seems that GM have favoured an outright sale of the now independent car marker to a Koenigsegg/Beijing Auto Industry Corporation (BAIC) alliance.
Koenigsegg are expected to take on 100% of Saab with BAIC bringing the 290 million Euros to the table that Koenigsegg were lacking. Saab is now a step closer to being a Sweedish company once again, albeit with a Chinese company to aid it.
It’s unsure what will become of the deal, as it BAIC were unsuccesful in buying Opel from GM due to the possibility of future conflict if BAIC put GM platforms and engines from Opel into production in China, a market where GM performs extremely well with little competition.
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What I understand is that BAIC would gain access to future Saab platforms not based on GM’s Gamma-II and Epsilon-II platforms, but not the current ones. GM’s platforms were licensed for use by Saab brand models only, not 3rd party models.
In other word, BAIC has to fund almost two billion dollars for Saab engineers to develop two new replacement platforms and engines for use in future Saab/BAIC models, and BAIC will get a taste of how expensive an auto platform engineering can be.
And how would you know this?
Have a down vote for not providing sources.
(I like the up/down feature!)
Why the downvotes?!