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According to foreign media reports, Sweden's Global Electric vehicle Company (NEVS) has announced the launch of a "hibernation program" to reduce all costs, repay supplier debts and avoid bankruptcy liquidation. As part of its efforts to cut costs and avoid bankruptcy, the company plans to cut 320 jobs, or nearly 95 per cent of its workforce. If the layoff plan takes effect, the number of employees in the company will be reduced to 20.

"We are communicating and negotiating with the appropriate unions to provide support and legal advice to all our employees, a process that will take place within the next six months," NEVS said. Nina Selander, interim CEO of NEVS, said that the company had no choice but to enter the "hibernation plan", which meant that we would be forced to reduce all costs and suffer layoffs in all areas of the company.

Data show that Saab, the predecessor of NEVS, was born in the national military aircraft manufacturing enterprise, and Saab turned to produce cars after the end of World War II, and the origin of the aviation industry makes Saab have unique technical advantages in automobile production. Saab was merged by Scania and Swedish aircraft Co., Ltd., and the original aircraft company was abbreviated as SAAB in Swedish, which later became the logo of the company's car.

Saab is famous for its strong power and outstanding safety performance, and is known as a land aircraft with "human and vehicle in one and flying close to the ground". In the early races, Saab has a record of more than 1,000 victories, including more than 100 international champions.

The excessive pursuit of technology and safety has led to high production costs and repeated crises in Saab's operation. In 1990, general motors acquired a 50% stake in Saab, becoming the largest controlling shareholder. In 2000, General Motors bought Saab completely and launched the new Saab icon in August of that year. A number of Chinese companies also tried to buy Saab after GM's wholly-owned control, but all failed because GM refused to export Saab's core technology to China.

In 2010, General Motors sold Saab to Dutch Spyker for $400 million, and Saab officially changed ownership. Two years later, NEVS, a global electric car company based in Sweden, successfully acquired Saab's core assets and intellectual property rights, inheriting all Saab's intellectual property and technology patents.

NEVS was founded in April 2012 to acquire Swedish Saab automotive technology and assets. Therefore, NEVS can be said to be both the predecessor of Saab and the parent company of Saab. After five years of upgrading and industry layout, NEVS has quickly become a leader in the new energy vehicle industry, with the world's top electric smart vehicle R & D center in Sweden and a global R & D team of more than 500 people.

In January 2017, NEVS obtained the production qualification of pure electric passenger vehicles through its subsidiary National Energy New Energy vehicle Co., Ltd. In the same year, NEVS launched the concept production model 9-3 pure electric car and 9-3X pure electric SUV. Two years later, in January 2019, Evergrande announced that it had acquired a 51 per cent stake in NEVS through the acquisition of MiniMinor Limited. This is another major layout of Evergrande in the field of car construction after taking a stake in Guanghui Automobile, the world's largest car dealer, causing a great sensation in the industry.

Since then, MiniMinor continued to subscribe for shares in NEVS until MiniMinor owned an 82.4% stake in NEVS on June 10. In June 2020, Evergrande announced that it would buy a 17.6 per cent stake in NEVS for $379.5 million. Upon completion of the acquisition, NEVS will become a wholly owned subsidiary of MiniMinor, and Evergrande has a 100 per cent controlling stake in NEVS.

In June 2019, Evergrande New Energy Automobile Group announced the mass production of its first model, Guoneng 93. According to reports, Guoneng 93 is a pure electric model based on Saab Phoenix E platform and Saab technology in Sweden. NEVS has completed the research and development of this model long before Evergrande entered the company. Evergrande said that in the strict sense, the Guoneng 93 is not the first "Evergrande-built" new energy vehicle, but its mass production line is still a milestone, indicating that Evergrande's domestic production line also has the capacity of mass production.

Two months later, in August 2019, Evergrande officially launched its new energy vehicle brand, Hengchi, and unveiled six new cars under the "Hengchi" brand in August 2020, including Hengchi 1, Hengchi 2, Hengchi 3, Hengchi 4, Hengchi 5 and Hengchi 6. Xu Jiayin, chairman of Evergrande Group, said it would take three to five years to become the largest and most powerful new energy vehicle group in the world. As for Guoneng, it seems to have died in the fetus.

Later, China Evergrande's debt weighed down and NEVS began to look for a new owner. In August 2021, NEVS issued layoff notices to about 650 of its employees, and nearly half of them will be laid off. Stefan Tilk, then chief executive, added: "if NEVS survives the crisis, it may hire staff again to match Evergrande's plans to expand its business in Europe."

According to European media reports, China Evergrande is considering selling its national electric vehicle Sweden Co., Ltd. (NEVS). Stefan Tilk, chief executive of NEVS, told the outside world that the company is open to sales or other financing and is looking for US and European investors, including industrial partners and venture capital firms that have expressed interest in the brand.

At present, China Evergrande is dealing with more than $300 billion in defaulted debt. Evergrande not only failed to pay the interest on its three rounds of international bonds on time, and Bing raised cash through a series of asset sales, but judging from the information available, China Evergrande holds a stake in NEVS that has not been sold yet, and the company has announced the launch of a "hibernation program" to cut costs and avoid bankruptcy, but there will only be more than 20 employees left after layoffs. If NEVS has no new investors or is sold for some time in the future, the company may face bankruptcy. According to the memo, Evergrande is providing NEVS with a "new business direction", but does not mention what the new business will include.

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