Last week, the world media, and those who follow the events around the former Saab company, were surprised by the announcement that the company Evegrande Group, as the majority owner of the company NEVS, is in big financial problems. Also, then came the news that the Evegrande Group is selling off part of its EV operations and that among the main interested is the Chinese technology giant Xiaomi, known for the production of smartphones.
Like other Saab car fans, we lamented that for almost ten years now there have been no tangible results from NEVS, other than sporadic news of testing new technologies. Not to mention (Saab successor) car production. In March last year, we also saw the first information regarding the testing of autonomous cars based on the Saab 9-3 model. Following this, the company NEVS announced today that yet another important milestone on their autonomous drive journey has been achieved. Recently the Swedish Transport Agency approved the so-called Vehicle Acceptance Test.
What this essentially means? This means that NEVS now have a temporary permit to drive on public roads between two gates in Trollhättan with their autonomous NEVS 9-3 vehicle. When this gate-to-gate (G2G) operation works properly in real life the Swedish Transport Agency will grant them the full approval called Site Acceptance Test, expected later this autumn. At the moment, based upon their documentation, NEVS engineers see no major issues to pass also the Site Acceptance Test.
As they explain in this company, this is another precondition for the participation of this type of vehicle in public traffic, so they drew a parallel with obtaining a driver’s license. Simply put, You first must pass the theoretical test, which is what NEVS achieved last week. After that you must pass the driving test which is what they expect to do this autumn.
NEVS trial in Trollhättan is also mentioned on EV news website as part of the Autoware Foundation, a non-profit organization supporting open-source projects enabling self-driving mobility.
