The day after the final Saab and NEVS 9-3 cars were auctioned in Trollhättan, NEVS CEO Nina Selander spoke to Sveriges Radio. It was a short interview, but one sentence carried more weight than a longer corporate statement would have done.
Speaking about the auction, Selander said she was satisfied with how the event went. Saab enthusiasts from Sweden and abroad attended, all seven cars attracted strong interest, and the atmosphere reflected what the NEVS team had hoped for.
Then came the line that explains why this auction mattered far beyond a small batch of unregistered cars:
“Saab fan clubs are still growing, fifteen years after the bankruptcy.”
That is not nostalgia dressed up as a quote. It is the practical reason why seven cars from the last phase of Trollhättan production could still attract international attention in 2026. Saab Automobile went bankrupt in 2011. The factory has changed hands, been reduced, partly sold, and stripped of much of its former industrial role. Yet the community around the brand continues to organize, document, travel, bid, restore, and argue over details that most dead car brands lose within a decade.
The harder context behind the auction
The Sveriges Radio report did not stay only with the emotion of the weekend. It also placed the auction inside NEVS’ current financial reality.
Earlier in the same week, the remaining 20 NEVS employees in Trollhättan were notified of redundancy. Selander herself was included in that notice. The decision came from the Chinese owner, Evergrande Group, which concluded that the company must cut further after what Selander described as an extremely difficult eighteen months.
She was direct about the numbers: liquid funds will not last. The sale of the electric vehicle projects Emily GT and PONS has not been completed, and the risk of bankruptcy is now part of the public discussion rather than background speculation. “I can see that the liquid assets will not go all the way,” she said.
That is the business reality standing behind the auction photographs, the farewell speeches, and the final hammer prices.
Emily GT is still in play, but the window is closing
For us who follow the Emily GT story, Selander’s comments sharpen the timeline rather than change the basic facts. The project is still available. Talks with potential buyers are continuing. NEVS has not officially abandoned the effort to sell the Emily GT or the PONS autonomous shuttle project.
Selander also made clear that she does not intend to leave during her notice period. Even after receiving her own redundancy notice, she said the company will continue buyer discussions: “We will not give up on that during this time.”
That matters because the Emily GT is not just another abandoned EV prototype. It is the project led by Peter Dahl as both program director and technical director, and it remains tied to the final technical ambitions of the Trollhättan engineering organization. The Protean AWD prototype sold at the May 30 auction was part of that development context – a rolling test bench used to inform the thinking behind the Emily GT’s in-wheel motor architecture.
The auction on May 30 was widely read as a symbolic closing point for Saab’s industrial afterlife in Trollhättan. Selander’s Sveriges Radio interview suggests something more precise: NEVS may still have one final chance to move the Emily GT and PONS projects into new hands, but that chance is now running against formal redundancy notices and a shrinking cash position.
The weekend closed one Saab chapter. The next few weeks may decide whether NEVS gets to close its own story through a sale – or through the harder route of insolvency.
Source: Sveriges Radio / P4 Väst
