Peter Dahl Explains the Last Saab and NEVS 9-3s – and What Trollhättan Really Sold

The auction results are now settled. Seven cars, just over 1.03 million SEK, all seven purchased by Swedish private individuals or companies. But numbers only tell part of the story. The other part was spoken aloud at Stallbacka on May 30, when Peter Dahl – former NEVS Program Director and one of the key technical figures behind the Emily GT project – stood in front of the assembled crowd and walked through every car on the auction list, one by one.

Dahl joined Saab in 1994 as a young engineer working on engines and engine management systems. He was there through the GM era, present when the bankruptcy came, and returned when NEVS started up. Over his final years at NEVS he served as program director across multiple projects before taking on the role of both project leader and technical director for the Emily GT. If anyone could explain what these seven cars actually represented, it was him.

His remarks, alongside NEVS CEO Nina Selander‘s opening address, gave the auction a depth that online bidding alone cannot provide. Marcus and Manuela from their Saab-focused YouTube channel were there to capture it, and their follow-up video documents both the atmosphere and the substance of what was said.

What Peter Dahl said about the three final Saab 9-3 pre-production cars

The three gasoline Saab 9-3s sold for 177,000, 159,000 and 142,000 SEK respectively. They are model year 2014, and Dahl was specific about what that means.

When NEVS restarted under Kai Johan Jiang’s ownership, with Qingdao as the Chinese investor, the company needed cars quickly – as official transport vehicles for the investor’s government officials. They had eleven months. At that point, Dahl explained, the electric vehicle program had started but had not progressed far enough to be viable on that timeline. The only realistic option was to restart the last Saab 9-3 production line.

Getting the supply chain running again was the hardest part. The first reaction from most suppliers when NEVS engineers arrived was straightforward refusal: Saab had gone bankrupt owing them money, and they wanted nothing more to do with the name. Dahl and his team had to go back to each supplier individually and explain that this was a new company, not Saab. Around 70 percent came back on board. The remaining 30 percent had either destroyed their tooling, could not help, or chose not to. As a result, approximately 30 percent of the 2013-2014 Saab 9-3 is new development – new rear lamps, new seat designs, revised electronics – created within those eleven months.

Total production across 2013 and 2014 was around 350 cars. Roughly 70 were built in 2013, with the remainder completed in 2014. Production stopped when Qingdao failed to deliver the investment they had promised, triggering a reconstruction process – what Dahl called chapter 11 in Swedish terms.

The three cars sold at the May 30 auction came from the first batch of pre-production vehicles made before full-rate production began. That batch was probably between 30 and 70 cars, built four to six months ahead of the main production run. They exist to verify that the technical content is right, that quality is correct and that the production process itself functions.

These are not prototype cars in the conventional sense. They are finished, production-specification vehicles built before the main line was declared ready. Their status is unusual. Their identity as the last Saab 9-3s is not a marketing claim.

The NEVS 9-3 electric car: from Trollhättan to Tianjin

The NEVS 9-3 electric car, which sold for 252,000 SEK and was the auction’s highest-priced lot, has a more complicated origin story than its appearance suggests. Dahl identified it as a D0A car – the designation NEVS used for the development vehicles built to prepare for Chinese production.

The original plan was straightforward: develop the car in Trollhättan, disassemble it, and reassemble it in China at a simple assembly facility. Then Chinese regulations changed. An assembly hall was not enough. A body shop was required. Then a press shop. Then a paint facility. By the end of the process, NEVS had built a completely integrated car factory in Tianjin, east of Beijing – a modern facility comparable in scope to the Trollhättan plant itself, built from scratch in parallel with the car development.

The approximately 30 pre-series vehicles built under the D0A designation passed through certification in China. After that, Dahl noted, the Chinese side determined the car was too expensive, and the battery concept and some electronic modules were changed. The production version that eventually emerged was not exactly what was developed in Trollhättan, but close enough that the development work was fundamental to it. The car sold at auction is one of those original Trollhättan-developed D0A pre-series vehicles.

The range-extender prototype: a technology direction that was ahead of its time

The range-extender prototype, which sold for 62,000 SEK and was the lowest-priced lot, was built as a demonstrator for an external customer project – Dahl identified the customer as Evergrande, the Chinese property and automotive conglomerate that was exploring different technology paths for the Chinese market.

The technical logic was straightforward: for drivers who mostly make short trips, carrying a large, heavy and expensive battery for every journey is wasteful. A smaller battery handles daily driving; a small combustion engine, running at a single fixed RPM as a generator, starts automatically on long-distance trips and recharges the pack. The engine Dahl described was derived from ATV and UTV off-road applications – small, efficient, designed to run at one optimal speed – charging at approximately 25 kW.

The concept is not exotic by today’s standards, but Dahl noted that China moved hard into range-extender architecture at roughly the same time NEVS was developing this car. His assessment was direct: NEVS was on time with that development, and would have had a credible market position there had the project continued. The car exists as a single unit. It was sold with the high-voltage battery removed and the interior partly disassembled.

The Protean AWD prototype: 80,000 SEK per wheel motor

The NEVS 9-3 with four Protean in-wheel motors – which sold for 121,000 SEK – was, in Dahl’s own words, a rolling test bench prepared ahead of the Emily GT development. He was unambiguous about what the hardware is actually worth.

Each of the four Protean wheel motors cost 80,000 SEK to procure. The Autobox controller units managing the torque signals to each individual wheel cost 150,000 SEK apiece at last check. The car also carries two complete drivetrain systems, as the original TS electric drivetrain was retained alongside the wheel motors: the front driveshafts from the original gearbox were removed and the Protean units fitted directly. From a pure parts-value standpoint, Dahl’s own estimate puts the components alone at approximately half a million SEK.

The engineering purpose was torque vectoring – using different torque levels at each wheel to create yaw effects, making the car feel significantly more agile and responsive to steering inputs. The key finding from the development work was that adding extra torque to the outer rear wheel during cornering produced the best driving sensation. The work also covered anti-spin and regenerative braking calibration, since motor-based regeneration can lock wheels if not properly managed.

This car fed directly into the Emily GT program. It is the physical prototype that preceded the Emily GT’s most distinctive technical feature.

The autonomous prototype: cities, transport and the PONS concept

The autonomous driving test car, sold for 118,000 SEK after 48 bids, was not a standalone project. Dahl described it as a rolling test bench for NEVS’s PONS concept – a pod-like autonomous shuttle project for urban transport, visible at the far end of the factory hall at the May 30 event as a small minibus-style unit.

NEVS had serious institutional interest in the PONS program. Cities including Paris, Hamburg and Oslo engaged directly with the company, visiting Trollhättan multiple times to examine the concept and test the autonomous systems.

The 9-3-based prototype was built specifically to calibrate the autonomy software and understand how users and surrounding traffic respond to self-driving vehicles in real conditions. It carries LiDAR, radar and cameras, plus an Autobox controller and extensive data-recording equipment. The underlying platform is the same TS electric base as the other NEVS 9-3s.

Nina Selander’s address: the human dimension

Before Dahl’s technical walkthrough, Nina Selander gave a personal address to the crowd that framed the day honestly. She described her own relationship with Saab: eight close family members worked for the company, twelve childhood friends worked in the same buildings she would later run. She had worked at Saab for four and a half years before the 2011 bankruptcy, and left the day before the announcement to give birth to her son. Her manager called during the delivery to say she should not come in – and then called again to say the company had gone bankrupt.

She became CEO of NEVS in 2023. The role required, as she put it, managing a closing-down process with full dignity. At the May 30 event she was direct about where things stand: NEVS still has a small team trying to find a path forward for the Emily project, because she believes it deserves to continue. The Emily GT is still being offered to potential buyers and partners.

Her words at the event captured the day without oversimplifying it: “It has been a day filled with so much emotion. Above all, it has been wonderful and truly moving to see how much Saab means to so many people.”

Media coverage: 47 countries, all seven cars staying in Sweden

According to Klaravik’s official press release, the auction and the surrounding event were covered in 47 countries worldwide. All seven cars were purchased by Swedish private individuals or companies, with several based in western Sweden. The only contested international finish came on the autonomous prototype, where late bids from Polish and German buyers were eventually overtaken by a Swedish company in the final minutes.

Carita Nero from Klaravik stated that the breadth of international coverage reflects the legendary status Saab still holds, and that the results demonstrated the visibility Klaravik can bring to a sale of this kind.

The AOL-syndicated article framed the sale for a wider audience, capturing what drove global interest: for many readers outside Scandinavia, these seven cars represented not a routine liquidation but the tangible, physical end of a brand they had followed and mourned for fifteen years.

What remains

The factory building at Stallbacka has been sold. The new owner, according to accounts from the day, is a rally enthusiast who has committed to keeping the building accessible to Saab enthusiasts. That is a small but meaningful footnote to a day that had few comfortable conclusions.

Nina Selander‘s final message at the event was the same one she has been delivering for months: NEVS is still trying. The Emily GT project, with Peter Dahl as both project director and technical chief, is still being offered to potential buyers and partners. The seven cars that left Stallbacka on May 30 are the last physical evidence of the work that was done inside those gates. What happens next with the Emily program is a separate story, still being written.

For SaabPlanet readers who want the full atmosphere from the day – the factory floor, the cars, the speeches, and the moment the final hammer fell – Marcus and Manuela’s coverage remains the most complete record available.