Just a month after starting deliveries to dealers, National Electric Vehicle Sweden (Nevs) has stopped production of Saab 9-3-based cars due to a cash crisis.
“The root cause of the current situation is that Nevs’ shareholder, Qingbo Investment, has not fulfilled their contractual obligation to finance the operations,” the automaker said in an update published on its website.
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It said it was preparing an extensive investment to develop a new platform on the Phoenix architecture, which will be the base for future car models, in cooperation with other global OEMs.
“These collaborations involve sharing cost of development and reduced costs of components through significantly higher volumes.
“Nevs has recently signed a frame agreement with a major international automotive OEM regarding the cooperation in product development of the future platform. A negotiation with another major automotive OEM is also taking place regarding part ownership. The objective is to add significant resources to the development of Saab as a global premium car brand name.
“The partnerships will contribute to secure Nevs with the right financial and technical support to develop new products and distribution of cars on a global basis.”
“Even if the long term perspective of Nevs remains very exciting and promising it is a short term cash problem.”
The automaker said Nevs’ main owner National Modern Energy Holdings (NME) has since the beginning of the year decided to enter into the position as the sole financier of the company.
“Recently NME had to conclude that despite enormous efforts it has not been possible to capitalise its assets in China as fast as needed to support Nevs. This has resulted in a time lag between the financing from China and the need of cash to pay suppliers. As of today (20 May) NME has transferred over SEK3bn to Nevs and made additionally large investments in China – the new battery factory and the technology development centre.
“It is important to state that the assets are significantly higher than the debt but Nevs is planning to use short term credits to cover all outstanding and near term obligations until the long term financing is secured. This bridge solution is planned to be realised within a near future.”
The company is also planning a “reduction” of hired consultants.
