Saab is back, with a stunning electric sedan The Emily GT

Saab is back. Well, as NEVS, and they’re returning with a stunning electric concept car, The Emily GT but they need investors to bring it to life.

Saab, now known as NEVS has revealed a stunning new electric car concept, The Emily GT.

Officially it’s in “hibernation” but the Swedish car company formerly known as Saab has revealed a stunning new electric car concept.

Now known as NEVS, which stands for National Electric Vehicle Sweden, key staff from what was the Saab car company have spent the last few years developing a revolutionary electric car using in-wheel motors.

The Emily GT is a sleek, four-door sports sedan that was developed in secret in an attempt to rescue the brand from its current stasis.

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However, with the global pandemic scuppering plans to launch the Emily GT to the public and with no injection of cash from its Chinese owners, the Swedish-based NEVS team have revealed it to the world in the hope it will attract a new owner.

In other words, NEVS just isn’t looking to sell a new car, it wants to sell you the whole car company.

Speaking in a recent interview with Swedish publication, Carup, NEVS CEO Nina Selander said she and her team were proud to show their creation to the world and invited would-be car company owners to come forward to rescue both the model and the brand.

“It is for sale, it is also a joy to be able to show it,” Selander told Carup.

“It should be allowed to live on, it’s too nice, too good and too modern a car for nothing to come of it. Interested parties are welcome.”

The backseat of the Emily GT.

The Emily GT was developed during 2019 by a team of around 350 former Saab staff, led by long-term Saab engineer, Peter Dahl. The catalyst for the development of Emily was the parent company’s purchase of Protean Electric, a company that specialises in building in-wheel electric motors.

The Emily GT features a motor in each wheel, producing 90kW of power, to provide a total of 358kW and a claimed range of up to 1000km, according to the NEVS team.

There are also plans to develop an even more powerful version boasting 420kW and 2200Nm of torque.

While it was developed in secret, with the need to sell and prove that it’s a fully functional prototype, the NEVS team released a video of the Emily GT being tested in Sweden against Porsche’s all-electric Taycan.

The cabin and dashboard of the Emily GT.

Peter Dahl said the in-wheel motors allowed for a more spacious cabin.

“It is a spacious car with a lot of driving pleasure,” Dahl said. “It is very easy and stable to drive. It has a unique balance between comfort and driving pleasure, but can still be a family car.

“We had the Porsche Panamera and Porsche Taycan as benchmarks during development.”

Using in-wheel motors does have its drawbacks, with more unsprung weight making it harder to fine-tune the suspension for a comfortable ride, but Dahl believes the benefits outweigh the downsides.

“The possibilities for torque vectoring are fantastic, all torque can be controlled. It’s like changing from straight slalom skis to carving skis,” Dahl explained.

Under the Saab name, which lost the rights to use the aerospace division of the once successful Swedish enterprise, the brand was a rival to Volvo and other premium European brands.

The Emily GT.

Saab’s automotive division was bought by General Motors in 2000 and began struggling almost immediately, with the American giant selling it off in 2010.

After that it passed through a series of owners, including boutique Dutch supercar-maker, Spyker, and finally the current Evergrande Group from China.

NEVS made a small number of vehicles based on previous Saab models after taking control of the company in 2012 but it has been in “hibernation” since 2014 due to a lack of funding.

Now it needs to find a new owner in order to get the Emily GT into production and to keep the legacy of Saab alive.