SAAB had a wild ride in the auto world, going from a solid reputation of safe, plain-looking, luxury vehicles, to owner General Motors Scuttling the division and then putting it up for sale. The new owners have since focused on an electric powertrain and have come out with a seriously impressive vehicle, called the Emily, using Protean motors and developed with some of the best minds from Saab’s past. The future looks uncertain for the company, but hopefully, this offering sneaks through to production, even if the company does not. Here’s what you need to know.

A Look Back at Saab's History.

Red 1985 Saab EV1 Concept car
Saab
Rear shot of a red 1985 Saab EV1 Concept car on the road.

Back In Saab’s heyday they developed a reputation for producing award-winning cars at a luxury price tag. Unfortunately for it, that didn’t translate into vehicle sales. Its legacy could best be described as niche, with only a small following of fiercely dedicated fans. Ultimately Saab went the way of the dodo in 2011 when GM decided to sell the car company. It then decided not to sell the car company due to concerns about selling to a Chinese company, but then in the end, sold anyway. The owner ended up being National Electric Vehicles Sweden (NEVS) owned by China’s Evergrande group, and started producing the same boring 9-3’s that Saab had always produced when production started in 2013. Who could’ve predicted that it also couldn’t sell plain-looking luxury cars? In 2014, the company lost its license to produce vehicles under the Saab name. It didn’t take that lying down though. NEVS shifted its focus to electric vehicles, and you’ll be glad it did.

Introducing the Emily GT

The Saab-inspired company unveiled the Emily GT at CES Asia in 2017. Looking at the vehicle, you would swear it’s an electric 9-3, but there’s more than meets the eye. Initially, the Evergrande Group signed off on 20 prototypes, but that was before the housing crisis in China, of which it was at the center. Ultimately only six Emily GTs were built. The specs for this vehicle are incredibly impressive, unfortunately, they are unverifiable at this point, as the vehicle is only in concept. The range is said to be 621 miles due to its giant battery brick coming in at 175KWH. That’s on par with Rivian's electric truck, the R1T, crammed into a vehicle that is much smaller.

Despite its size, NEVS makes the claim of being able to charge the vehicle up to 80-percent in just 20 minutes. It makes use of Protean’s in-wheel motors that put around 120 horsepower into each wheel, bringing the combined output to 480 horsepower, and that’s straight to the wheels. Although we can't verify these claims at this point, they come with some big names backing them. Simon Padien, Saab’s former design chief managed the project, and Christian Von Koenigsegg has said the vehicle performed extraordinarily well in tests. The interior is sufficiently luxurious, although, at this point, luxury interiors have come to be expected from the EV world. It’s made of premium materials, has a digital dash panel, and has a large touchscreen as per the gospel of Elon. Even more impressive is the timeline, the vehicle came from an idea on paper to wheels on the ground in just 10 months.

Next Level Motors from Protean

The feature in this one-of-a-kind vehicle that has gotten everyone's head turning is the in-wheel motors from Protean Motors. Proteans’ drivetrain solution is similar to Elaphe, featured in Aptera and Lordstown vehicles, using four individual motors, one in each wheel, to achieve power. I can already hear the forums buzzing about torque vectoring and unsprung mass. I'll leave those arguments to engineers that I'm sure are smarter than me. What I can tell you is Protean’s in-wheel motors weigh just 75 pounds each, so it does not seem to have been an issue at this point. Redditors aside, these motors do actually seem to work, and they are able to produce massive horsepower directly to the wheels, while significantly decreasing the weight and complexity of the vehicle's drivetrain while improving the traction control and battery usage. Many have speculated that these in-wheel motors will be the future solution when it comes to retrofitting ICE cars and bringing them into the EV world.

The Future Of The Emily Is Still Uncertain

NEVS has, in recent years, focused on the Chinese market. Developing vehicles designed for taxis and other community transport. In 2020, NEVS unveiled the K50. It featured some pretty advanced autonomous driving technology designed specifically to operate in urban areas where vehicles are packed closer together and where there are more pedestrians. Time will tell if the Emily GT actually makes it to production, given the application, there is a good chance the Swedish car company will incorporate some of these technologies into the vehicle, or future vehicles for that matter, giving Tesla’s FSD a run for its money. However, NEVS was exploring a sale of its facility in Trollhattan, Sweden, and laid off 95-percent of its staff in March 2021 as part of a restructuring. The company then went into “hibernation mode”, and to date, has not given any update on whether this dream is of the pipe variety, or if it has a timeline for the future of the company. . Car lovers, and especially Saab lovers are hoping they can pull off a miracle and revive Saabs legacy with this EV powerhouse.