Saab will either be owned by Russians or Chinese. That’s the way it looks today. Which is no guarantee that it will look the same on Monday. Read More >

Today, 3,700 employees of Saab received an invitation to come to an all hands meeting tomorrow, Wednesday. It will be a break from the doldrums. In Trollhättan, the lines have been down for three weeks now because Saab has no money to pay parts suppliers, reports Automobilwoche [sub]. Tuesday ended in Sweden without a solution. Suppliers, unions and Swedish politicians demand immediate action, or Saab will go down the drain.

Talk about a Chinese savior has died down. All hopes hinge on Vladimir Antonov, and the sale of the factory to the Russian, well, business man. The problem is: The real estate is collateral for a loan from the European Investment Bank (EIB). Saab told Automobilwoche that the sale is “no sure” due to harsh demands by the EIB. Read More >

Saab ended last week with “no solution in sight,” but after a busy weekend it seems that the Swedish brand has found a way to keep rage, raging against the dying of the light. Bloomberg reports that

The Swedish government has agreed to let Saab free up collateral now used to back the EIB loan, of which Saab so far has drawn 217 million euros, the people said. The freed-up collateral allows Saab to sell property to Antonov’s company. The property to be sold would include at least parts of Saab’s factory in Trollhaettan in southwestern Sweden, where the carmaker is based.

Saab (technically still called Spyker Cars) also recently sold its Spyker sportscar business to Antonov who continues to be the only major investor involved in Saab and its ongoing rescue. And though Antonov continues to be happy to pour his money into the firm, it’s not as simple as just writing a check: Antonov keeps offering support and governments keep shooting them down. Where’s the private capital love?

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Yesterday,  Spyker CEO Muller said everything is peachy. Saab “is not on the verge of collapse,” Muller said to a rapt audience of reporters, while, as Reuters snidely remarked, “Saab was presenting new vehicles already shown at the Geneva auto show.” Muller promised that “a small glitch does not change the fact that cars are being made,” and that Saab would have the widest and newest range in its history next year. This year? No problem at all. Just that output would be  more weighted towards the second half of the year. Which in itself would be a miracle, and outpacing the competition, because in Europe, auto sales are more weighted towards the first half of the year. This was yesterday. Now is today. Read More >

Toyota today confirmed the month-old rumor that they will go to Siberia. And by way of  ESP, we had even pictured the correct car when we wrote about it. Read More >

“Russia is an up and coming country with a sudden influx of foreigners,” says my favorite mail-order bride site. “there is a great deal of fascination about foreigners.” No kidding. The world’s automakers must be on a speed-dating jaunt through Russia. Today, Reuters reports that GM and Russia’s Avtotor are in joint venture talks. The plan: At least 300,000 cars per year. It’s not all idle talk, because Valery Gorbunov, Avtotor’s chief executive, told Reuters that a JV is definitely in the cards. Read More >

It must be Russian week. Yesterday, it was Ford and Sollers (and Sollers minus Fiat/Chrysler). Today, it’s Volkswagen and GAZ going to the altar. The two plan a joint venture to produce 300,000 cars per year in Russia, The Moscow Times reports. Read More >

Fiat’s plans to build up to 500,000 Chryslers and Jeeps in Russia collapsed last week. Chrysler’s cross-town rival Ford may have had something to do with that. On Friday, Ford and Russia’s Sollers “signed a Memorandum of Understanding under which the parties intend to launch a new 50:50-owned joint venture called Ford Sollers for the production and distribution of Ford vehicles in Russia,” says a Sollers communiqué. Sollers also had been in talks with Fiat, which ended fruitless. The end of the Fiat talks were announced on the same day the deal with Ford was revealed. Read More >

While Mazda is still talking with Russian politicos about producing cars in Siberia, Toyota is doing it.  Toyota “is moving into the Russian Far East ahead of other Japanese automakers as part of a high-priority effort to tap emerging markets,” at least as far as  The Nikkei [sub] is concerned. Read More >

Remember Oleg Deripaska? The Russian oligarch that had been under suspicion of money laundering and organized crime activities?  The very same Deripaska GM did not want to have close to Opel for fear of losing their precious intellectual property ? Yes, him. GM just handed him the blueprints and the tooling for the Chevy Aveo. Read More >

We sometimes forget that Russia is very close to Japan. So close that you can see Russia (or Japan) with the naked eye. For many years, Japan’s used cars were literally sent to Siberia, where they did, right hand drive be damned, hard duty in a climate they were not built for. Mazda is thinking of reviving the far eastern ties between Russia and Japan. Read More >

Scotia Bank in Toronto has an insightful and resourceful car analyst, Carlos Gomes. Whatever he writes is worth reading. He expects car sales to rise and the “United States and the euro zone to climb out of their deep hole.” He also expects that the developed nations are ripe to be plucked and eaten by an upstart, roughhewn  crowd:

“In 2011, new car sales in China and the other BRIC nations (Brazil, Russia, India and China) will surpass the combined volumes of Western Europe and Japan, and account for roughly 30 per cent of global car sales.”

Here is his case: Read More >

Yo, wazzup?`Want to get your hands on Russia’s first homegrown hybrid, yo? All you need to do is get yo sorry azz over to Moscow, dat Russia for you, yo. According to Itar-Tass, the Russian yo-Auto company shows their “yo” hybrid at the yo-mobile pavilion in downtown Moscow from January 2 through 11. Yo, dat’s right. Read More >

Russia has complained long and bitterly that Western firms refuse to share technology with its home-grown auto industry, but now the billionaire owner of the New Jersey Nets has introduced Russia’s first home-grown hybrid cars in hopes of proving that Russia can compete in the global car industry. But, according to the WSJ, the launch of the brand known as “Yo” (“ë” in Russian) was not without its problems

Mr. Prokhorov said he intends to “break the stereotype saying Russia can’t produce good cars,” even though an executive needed three attempts to successfully start the prototype car with a mobile phone using a remote-start feature.

But then what do you expect from a Russian-built prototype of a hybrid car that’s set to cost only $10k?
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A few days ago the BBC reported that, officially, Russia was losing 1 trillion rubles (that’s about $32.5b to you) due to corruption. Also coming 154th on the corruption perceptions index does not help matters, either. “Gigantic sums of money are being pocketed by officials and dishonest businessmen,” said Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, “Deal with them and put them in prison – there is no other way out.” So it sounds like President Medvedev is serious about dealing with corruption. He starts with a foreign company with deep pockets: Daimler. Again? Read More >