The automotive world might be set to gain the most intriguing electric sedan since the Lucid Air. According to a report from the Swedish arm of German motoring magazine Auto, Motor und Sport, the NEVS Emily GT has found a buyer who wants to turn the lights on in Trollhättan once again, producing cars once again in the very town that made Saabs for more than half a century.
But wait, what is the Emily GT? Well, there are two answers: A short one and a long one. The short answer is that it’s an all-electric four-door super sedan. The long answer? It’s a Saab by any other name. See, after Saab went under, its assets and talent were acquired by a Swedish company called NEVS. After cranking out a handful of electric 9-3s, NEVS was acquired by Chinese conglomerate Evergrande, which soon after found itself financially embroiled in a housing market crisis. Several years into an extended period of so-called dormancy, NEVS popped back up out of nowhere with a brand new prototype.
Although the Saab name now belongs to the Saab aerospace company due to some undoubtedly complicated legal stipulations following the bankruptcy of Saab Automobiles, NEVS retained much of Saab Automobiles’ talent. Possibly due in part to the ex-Saab Automobiles team behind the Emily GT, the resulting product looks very familiar to anyone who’s seen a 2011 Saab 9-5. The floating pillar, the abundance of sheetmetal, the soft lines — all signs this car could’ve only come from one place on earth.
The stats of the Emily GT are as impressive as they are weird: 600-plus miles of range, 484 horsepower, 175 kWh battery pack, quad-motor all-wheel-drive with true torque vectoring thanks to four in-hub electric motors. Unsprung mass? Erm, well, it’s not the end of the world. Besides, the packaging benefits of hub motors are brilliant, so why not give it a shot? Sometimes you just have to see if crazy will indeed equal genius, and Saab engineers have historically proven a strong correlation.
Crazier still, the prototype is a fully-functional car. A Top Gear road test claims everything inside the car works, from infotainment to steering wheel-mounted audio controls. Oh, and don’t think of this as some parts-bin car either. The electronic shifter is unique, as is the user experience. Sure, there’s a big emergency stop button in the console, but fundamentally, this is a real motor vehicle. It’s certainly not finished, but it’s all too production-like to ignore.
So, does this mean that the Saab faithful will soon have something new to enjoy? At this point, it’s too early to say. Just because a buyer for the project has been found doesn’t mean everything will go into production without a hitch, let alone U.S. availability. Still, it’s a spark of good news we certainly weren’t expecting.
(Photo credits: NEVS/Plint Creative Agency)
Support our mission of championing car culture by becoming an Official Autopian Member.
-
Ex-Saab Engineers Shock World With Secret NEVS Electric Sedan Prototype
-
The Saab 9-2X Was An Excellent Subaru Impreza But A Disappointing Saab: GM Hit Or Miss
-
A Daydreaming Designer Imagines If Saab Had Rebooted The Sonett In 1985
-
Dammit, I Miss Saab And Hold Up Saab Also Made Computers?: Cold Start
-
People My Age Don’t Know What Saab Is And It Hurts
Got a hot tip? Send it to us here. Or check out the stories on our homepage.
Nobody over at NEVS asked me, but rather than a $65K fancypants sedan with batshit 0-60 times, they ought to apply the general design and principles (hub motors) to a car that more folks might actually want to buy 3-4 years from now, when Tesla’s Model 2 will perhaps exist. That means: a decently appointed Saabish-looking car with a cavernous hatchback, some clever design, and an emphasis on safety/practicality.
No, that’s actually not that complicated at all!
Why does this look like a clone of the lucid air?
Considering it is 15 years old, perhaps it is the other way around?
Is there really any compelling reason to believe that NEVS will sustainably and profitably produce this thing, or anything else for that matter? Saab and its various successors have been dead in the water since the GM bankrupty. There’s already dozens of BEV startups, most of whom won’t survive. Legacy auto is getting into the BEV space in a big way, especially in Europe, one of the most competitive BEV markets in the world. The price point this thing theoretically would be at is already way oversaturated. They may have produced a functional car and that’s all well and good. Actually manufacturing, marketing and distributing it is another thing altogether.
I think that Lordstown Motors has a better chance of making it than this NEVS Emily.
Fantastic summary, thank you!
I’d love to see modern successors to the original 96 as well as the Sonnett. Both of these cars were lightweight and had industry-leading drag coefficients for their class and time period. The original Sonnett had a Cd value of 0.29, and the 96 a 0.30, which for the time period, were both really good and hold up well by today’s standards.
Imagine a 400 horsepower FWD Sonnett with a 2.4L turbo 4, weighing in around 2,300 lbs, with a CdA value comparable to a VW XL1. Give it a dual-axis front suspension to reduce torque steer. It would create for itself a massive gap in front of a Civic Si at the Nürburgring, and be a halo car for highway fuel economy, without even having a hybrid drive system. If sufficient stability could be achieved(just enough downforce to avoid net lift, no more), this could be a car to exceed 200 mph top end.
Take that same engine, transmission, suspension, and layout and put it into an ultra-streamlined compact sedan shaped sort of like a jet airplane, also with a CdA value comparable to a VW XL1, maybe weighing in around 3,000 lbs. Now you have the new 96. It could come in two variants, a hybrid with the 4-cylinder engine kept naturally aspirated that gets about 50 mpg city and 70 mpg highway, and the 96 Viggen, a 400 horsepower turbocharged version that has no hybrid drive system, but still exceeds 50 mpg highway.
Even greater efficiency is within reach by leaving out that extra letter in the middle: Sonett.
What’s that one song by that one band? Something about, “if I had a million dollars…”
“… I’d buy you a NEVS Saab…
But not a real NEVS Saab that’s cruel…”
That would be The Barenaked Ladies.
And if you had JUST a million dollars to invest in NEVS, you’d be broke in no time.
NEVS (National Electric Vehicle Sweden) is about as Swedish as the Swedish Chef. (CHÖKLIT MÖÖSE!) Surprise! It’s a bunch of Chinese companies who were looking to loot and pillage the IP!
No surprise there. Any serious company would have coined the name Swedish Vehicle Electric Nationale’.
From the headline I was led to believe there’s a car called the “Wild Emily GT” coming out. I’m mildly disappointed.
I never realized I wanted one of those until this moment.
I thought the same thing. Wild Emily is a great name for a car.
Great, now I’m replaying my fantasies about Ms. Blunt.
The interior depresses me beyond words. Everything else about this car makes me want it, but the prospect of spending my time faced with those two lifeless rectangles and that anodyne, hospital waiting room interior design just fills me with ennui.
So many Saabs over the years have had joyous, driver-focused interiors that really paid off the old slogan “born from jets.”
Come on, NEVS. Just because something’s Swedish doesn’t mean it has to feel like it came from IKEA.
Huh, it does have a Siemens industrial look to it, like it’s the control center for an MRI. The wimpy charcoal tones don’t help.
Even the outside is a bland “yeah, that’s a car” and the big mouth on the front (& other cars) is bad
This was informative. Thank you.
Good write up, I still search for Saab or NEVS news from time to time in some weird (futile) hope Saab is coming back… I know it’s dead, but maybe, just maybe…. Yeah no.
Good news (in a James May voice). Having owned several Saabs in the past, would love to see it happen. That said the epic saga of Saabs zombie like state post GM is just hard to keep up with anymore :-/ Bravo for trying to keep the weirdness alive…
One of the first cars I lusted after as a teen was a 1976 SAAB 99 and I’d love to get excited about this, but I’m not sure I believe this news. I mean, it is coming from Trollhättan…
Now THAT is a Saab man! Great write up – being a Saab enthusiast means I knew most of it as it unfolded, but I’ve honestly never seen it so succinctly written out. Bravo!
Designed by Sven.
You mean the tree trunk in trunks Sven?
Is that NEVS as in this is nevs going to happen?
Saabs built some of the most fun cars I’ve ever owned. If this really makes it to production from Trollhättan with some of the same engineers, I would have to take a hard look, regardless if it was a Chinese company behind them, something I thought I would never say.
Question for Hubert: would increasing the tire sidewall on a hub-motored car compensate, at least partially, for the increased unsprung mass? Seems like the more the sidewall flexes for potholes, speed-bumps, etc., the less the hub moves. I would think the torque vectoring would compensate for a lot of the loss of stiffness of the sidewalls when cornering.
Probably, but speaking as someone who fat bikes, the problem with using tires as suspension is that they’re undamped. It tends to make for a bouncy ride. I would imagine tuning a suspension where you have undamped tires suspending a hub motor which is itself suspended by damped suspension would be a bit of a nightmare.
That a nice looking Lucid Air
The need for so much context is why I stopped trying to explain our SAAB 96 Lemons team name and logo from about a decade ago:
https://www.murileemartin.com/UG/LWA12/LWA12-UG-085.jpg
I’m still pretty happy with our simplification of the original Spyker motto, though.
What a history and what a recap. It’s a shame it’s true.
What an interesting name for a car. I wonder if there’s a story behind it.
In the meantime, what are the best cars that have people names? Go!
The Merkur XR4Ti, named after Elon’s kid.
COTD
He names everything X something.
Mazda Laputa.. do peoples nickname’s count?
The Mazda bongo friendee was named after springer spaniel….or so I claimed.
This name brings me even more joy than the Nissan Homy Super Long, which I didn’t think was possible.
I’ve always been partial to the first car the Top Gear idiots built. It’s name was Geoff.
Otherwise, I recently realized that I have kissed more Elises in my life than any other name. No, I have not kissed a Lotus Elise, but maybe I should.
I kissed my Lotus Elise once, it tasted of dusty paint.
I never did it again, I reverted to giving it a little appreciative pat on the fender after a good drive, and screaming at it for being a bastard when it wouldn’t start.
So Volvo has Polestar and [ what once was ] Saab has NEVS.
the choices, the choices…