Saab Ready to Work Alone

Having been owned for years by American manufacturer GM, Swedish brand Saab had no need to worry about what it calls an engineering structure; it just used GM's know-how and methods, and we've all seen where that led them.

Now, having freed itself from GM, Saab has big plans, as far as new models at least. But since GM is no longer in charge, a new way to build cars had to be devised.

To create this new way of building new cars and ultimately its future, Saab had to resort to all sorts of measures, ranging from retraining, to internal redeployments and voluntary separation packages.

The Swedish manufacturer announced today that it had completed setting up its new engineering structure. Simply put, Saab will from now on focus on the development of the current 9-3 model and the electrification of its products, using its own methods and tools.

“The new engineering organization embodies the new way of working at Saab Automobile, for instance in the new highly advanced vehicle architecture we have developed for future Saab models,” said Mats Fagerhag, Saab Product Development Vehicle director.

“This architecture, on which the successor to the current 9-3 will be built, is based on a modular approach with a set of components and systems, as well as a bandwidth flexibility allowing it to serve multiple vehicle needs.”

The car maker plans to conduct its business not alone, but accompanied by those who know a little more about, well, everything. Saab will continue to cooperate with BMW, Boston Power or American Axle.