Still-Struggling Saab Rolls Out EV and Engine Alliance with BMW
Saab is rolling out an electric version of the 9-3 wagon at the Paris Auto Show, and will put a test fleet of 70 of the cars on the road in Sweden. Of course, Saab is still a very fragile company, and its entry into what it calls ePower is as conditional as any other aspect of its business these days. A new technical alliance with BMW will help it survive and build new models.
The ePower is a trans-Atlantic collaboration with U.S.-based Boston Power, headed by Sweden-born Christina Lampe-Onnerud. They've produced a relatively high-performance EV, with a big 35.5-kilowatt-hour battery pack (displacing what would be the fuel tank and exhaust) and a 135-kilowatt, 184 horsepower electric motor driving the front wheels. The range is 124 miles, which is more than most â€" a function of the larger battery pack, and the higher energy density of Boston Power's cells (which are also used in HP laptops). "We're super excited," said Lampe-Onnerud. "It's a high-performing EV, and because it's a station wagon it's also a practical family car for regular people."
The key to making the Saab ePower work is what Lampe-Onnerud calls "the secret sauce," meaning the "handshake" between the battery and the car's electronic power management. "That's how you ensure long life for the battery pack." Also helping with battery life is an air cooling system. Batteries tend to have shorter range when exposed to extremes of temperature.
The bulk of the 70-car fleet will be used in a test program in central, west and eastern Sweden during 2011 and 2012, but Saab's Anna Petre confirmed in a phone call from Sweden that at least one of the cars will come to the U.S. "We see electricity as a key part of future vehicles," Petre said. "The electric 9-3 is a way to learn more about the future." Could the car go into production, as Volvo's plug-in hybrid car is? "we can't say that now," she said. "This program is to give up information so we can make that decision in the future."
Petre, and Saab itself, are right to proceed cautiously. Saab hasn't made a profit for a long time, and now it is a shaky big company controlled by a much smaller one, Spyker Cars. Saab produced 94,751 cars globally in 2008, but only 20,791 last year. The company posted a $177 million loss for the first half of 2010. Spyker chief executive Victor Muller told me that Saab would break even at 85,000, and the company president, Jan-Ake Jonsson, said it would have "good profitability" at 125,000.
But in the first six months, Saab actually sold 10,500 cars, and Jonsson admitted to Reuters that he might have been "a little bit optimistic" about a 50,000 sales goal for 2010. He attributed the company's continued losses to a longer-than-expected recovery from the anticipated liquidation.
Saab finally has a new model, the 9-5, developed mostly while General Motors was still in control. We'll see how that one does, but some critics complained it is short on the innovation needed to take on BMW and Mercedes. A new 9-3 is due in 2012 (which would mean shifting over the electric car, presumably), and a small 9-2 is also envisioned, maybe for 2014.
IHS Global Insight suggested in August. "It would appear that Saab's best chance of long-tem survival and success at the moment would be a highly integrated R&D partnership with an established OEM." Saab doesn't have that yet, but it does have a new relationship with BMW. On Thursday, BMW said it had "received a major order" from Saab for four-cylinder gas engines to supply "a new Saab model series," which probably means the 9-2, a small retro model sketched on a napkin by Muller himself.
The new engine, to be assembled at BMW's Hams Hall engine plant in Britain, will include start-stop technology, making it a so-called "micro hybrid."
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Photo: Saab/Boston Power