Comment by nocoiner | Hacker News Reader

Comment by nocoiner | Hacker News Reader

For some reason, lately I’ve been depressed on practically a daily basis by the death of Saab (maybe due to playing a lot of DCS and flying the Viggen; also in no small part due to my first car being a Saab). Lots of their cars continue to look quirky-great today (like the Viggen). I wish they continued to exist as an alternative Euro sedan, but alas.

Given the demographics of the Saab customer base, I think it could have been an interesting and canny move if GM had launched the Volt as a Saab. I think they expected it to become a super mainstream vehicle, and so they were never going to relegate it to a niche brand, but in retrospect it might have been an optimal move - maybe it could have saved Saab and not been a disappointment for Chevrolet. All they would have had to do was stick the start button between the front seats and turn it over to the designers in Sweden to give the interior and exterior a quick once-over gloss.

One of my kids is going to start driving next year. I’m shopping used Saabs and trying to convince my wife to let me get one for the kiddo. No luck so far.

Saab AB that designed Viggen is still active and a separate entity to Saab Automobile.

Saab JAS 39 Gripen being the latest generation aircraft.

Yes. And from what I understand, they’ll never license their name to an automaker again. So even if somehow Saab-cars-the-company could be resurrected, it would be under a new identity (like, say, New Electric Vehicle Sweden or whatever it was called - doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue).

My favorite bit of Saab trivia is that in the 60s, Norway offered Sweden half of its mineral interests in the North Sea in exchange for 40% of Saab. Sweden declined.

And Norway got super rich because of their oil.

But good industries may be more long term beneficial and maybe creates a more healthy and sustainable society compared to oil money doping.

Pretty sure that deal included Volvo as well, which was always bigger, particularly also including the trucks division.

Not sure how serious it was though, and maybe it is only a fairy tale.

I mean, I think Norway has been pretty responsible with their North Sea windfall. I don’t think one can really especially criticize them too much for anything they’ve done with Statoil/Equinor or their public petroleum fund. And given Saab’s demise and the sale of Volvo to China, I’m not sure that Sweden going it’s own way demonstrates a more sustainable model of industrial democracy.

You’re right though that I should have caveated that trivia - I’m not certain about the specifics or the essential truth of it. Still an interesting counterfactual to consider.

> I mean, I think Norway has been pretty responsible with their North Sea windfall. I don’t think one can really especially criticize them too much for anything they’ve done with Statoil/Equinor or their public petroleum fund.

And the story of how their sovereign fund came to be is quite an extraordinary one.

For those interested: https://www.ft.com/content/99680a04-92a0-11de-b63b-00144feab...

Edit: and an enticing excerpt

> But al-Kasim’s most immediate problem on arriving in Oslo that morning was how to fill the day […] “So I decided to go to the Ministry of Industry and ask them if they knew of any oil companies coming to Norway.”

> He deposited his luggage and walked to the ministry, where he was received by a baffled official who told him to come back that afternoon. When he returned, expecting only an address list, several men were waiting for him. “They were keen to know what had I been doing, what kind of education I had, whom I worked for. […]” His request for a list of possible employers had turned into an impromptu job interview. […] At the time of his surprise call, Norway’s oil administration numbered just three officials, all in their thirties and all learning essential parts of the job as they went along.

https://archive.is/RI9pj

Volvo trucks is still swedish.

What I meant was not that Norway has spent their oil money irresponsibly.

Just that they are not (quite) an industry nation.

It is a bit like comparing a person that wins the lottery at 18, although spending it wisely.

Compared someone working their way through life.

Who has a healthier life in the long run?

(I am a swede an my whole post has a not very subtle smell of jealousy, just like person 2 in my example probably has)

As a Norwegian, yeah you're not wrong. We have a lot of challenges to overcome as the oil age is coming to an inevitable end, although there are many here tho refuse to see the writing on the wall.

NEVS - National Electric Vehicle Sweden

SAAB - Svenska Aeroplan AB (Swedish Airplane Limited Company)

If you call SAAB SAAB, you might as well call NEVS NEVS :)

It was Volvo, not SAAB :)

Which is now Geely motors. I guess China was more persuasive.

Volvo back then wasn’t just Volvo cars (which Geely bought) but also what is now Volvo Group (trucks, buses, etc).

Thank you! Sorry for the misinfo. Motivated reasoning, I suppose.

> My favorite bit of Saab trivia is that in the 60s, Norway offered Sweden half of its mineral interests in the North Sea in exchange for 40% of Saab. Sweden declined.

Never heard of that. Feels like an obfuscated version of the Volvo-Norway deal that Volvo's CEO PG Gyllenhammar attempted. Are you sure you are not mixing things up?

> Given the demographics of the Saab customer base, I think it could have been an interesting and canny move if GM had launched the Volt as a Saab.

Absolutely. I drive a Polestar now, and my sense from the Polestar community is that many of us are frustrated Saab lovers. A new Saab EV is definitely something I'd be interested in! (Not that Polestar owners would make an especially huge market on our own...Just like Saab!)

ex saab 900 turbo (very used 1982...died in 1990 in a wreck when i was 22), also fascinated by Polestar.

may i ask how you like it?

I love it. The Android Automotive software can sometimes be a little flaky, but that's really the only issue I've ever had. Handling is great and the power and torque are very very intoxicating. (Not unlike other EVs, of course.)

For some, the 270 mi range is probably a bit of a turnoff. But if you live in Europe, or one of the parts of the U.S. where everything is close together, there's no issue at all. I would probably not buy one if I lived in Wyoming, but I doubt that's your situation.

Is Polestar really Swedish though? How much engineering input comes from the team in Sweden?

As far as I know, quite Swedish. Lots of shared development with Volvo which has lots of development as well as manufacturing in Sweden, but I don’t think the Polestars are assembled in Sweden.

Ok yeah I'm curious as I looked into them a few months back and saw they were manufactured in China.

As a consumer it is hard to know which EVs are designed and engineered in house (with outsourced manufacturing) versus a brand that has been repurposed (MG for example)

I think the Polestar 3 will be manufactured in the US though.

Yeah. That's a fair question to have. From a design perspective, it seems unmistakably Swedish. And it is built on a Volvo platform (same as the C40 recharge, as I understand it) with a lot of Volvo parts. Its seatbelt buckles even say "Since 1959"--referring to the year Volvo supposedly invented the seatbelt.

On the other hand, they are indeed manufactured in China. And Polestar is a joint venture between Volvo and Geely (Zhejiang Geely Holding Group), a Chinese company. Volvo Cars itself is also also owned by Geely. So China is not just the country of manufacture, if that's something you're concerned about.

While it obviously depends on what other cars you’re considering, Saabs are very safe cars [0]. Could help in convincing your wife!

[0] https://youtu.be/c1Z284Fv0cc

It would be interesting to re-test past 5 star NCAP cars in 2023, see how they hold up.

There are some tests like that. Here's one (not 2023 though):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pwGgRUkrnng

None would get more than 3 stars as you can't get a higher score without active safety systems. Pretty much all results would be compressed in the 0-2 stars range. Even if a 2003 car would be perfectly safe in a rollover or a offset frontal impact it would be deducted points because it doesn't have lane assists or drive fatigue warning or radar cruise control (barring some S class or 7 series that might have had these features).

I was t-boned by a Chevy avalanche truck that was going 35 miles an hour.

Both cars were totaled. The avalanche driver and passenger were taken in away in stretchers. I and another passenger were fine, one passenger had a laceration from broken glass and one had their arm jammed.

The Saab was really amazingly designed for safety and everyone was shocked that I wasn’t paste as the center beam on the side was pushed in about two feet.

Back in the early 90s my brother, a new driver, was driving my dad's 900 turbo on a wet road at 60mph, dodged a plastic bag on the road, spun out, and went into the trees. Totaled the car, dented every body panel, and snapped a ten-inch-diameter tree like a toothpick by ramming through it with his driver-side door. Only injury: passenger had a cramp in his calf from pressing his feet so hard into the floorboard as they spun through the trees.

Nice! Definitely going to give that a shot. I don’t think we’re actively considering anything in particular yet, but a ~10 year old car from a brand with a strong emphasis on safety seems ideal for a teen driver from my perspective. Not sure about the parts situation - is it possible that they were mostly drawn from the GM parts bin toward the end?

In that video, I cracked up at “a designer with… another Swedish car company.”

There is still plenty of parts to get, the Swedish government took over the spare parts so some parts are sold by Orion [0]. I have yet not failed to get a spare part that I need for my Saab 9-5 -04.

[0] = https://webshop.saabparts.com/

Edit: Missed a very important not in the last sentence.

You can still get parts, although if you're going through your mechanic they can be expensive, especially if the mechanic isn't a SAAB specialist. I do think its worth looking to see if you can find a SAAB specialist. When I was based in NYC, Swedish Underground was by far the best SAAB mechanic I ever used (it was booked usually 1-2 weeks in advance with just Saabs) and everything that was fixed, stayed fixed.

+1 for the importance of a good Saab mechanic (if you’re not working on it yourself). I think the deciding factor on if I buy another Saab in the future is my proximity to a decently rated Saab specialist.

I miss SAAB but they died way before bankruptcy. I had their last model 93 that was basically a reskinned Chevy Malibu. And it was very different from the post GM buyout 93 and 900s that I loved.

During Covid I got an idea to get a Saab project car and a 2001 93 cost $11k. So I guess there are a few crazy Saab lovers out there.

I hope they make a comeback. I still don’t know quite what it was about them that made me like them. It wasn’t just their oddness of being the Platypus of cars.

The Epsilon platforms was used for a lot of cars, some Opels/Saab etc. I still feel the 9-3 had a lot of SAAB to it in every detail. Using platforms and engines doesn't make the end product just a badged Chevy. For a proper SAAB rebadge, look at the 9-2X. They didn't even try with that one.

I had one and it was terrible compared to the previous gen 93.

You can find quite a few for cheaper, especially in the Northeast. My current Saab is nearing its end of life, and I'm _so_ tempted to get another one, even if it doesn't really match my lifestyle anymore

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